HuTTON. — On the Geographical Relations of the N.Z. Fauna. 229 



Two species of seal frequent our shores ; the sea leopard {Stenorhynchus 

 leptonyx) which is also found on ice floes in the Antarctic seas, and occasionally 

 extends to Australia, and the fur seal [Arctocephalus cinereus), which is 

 suj)posed to occur also on the southern coasts of Australia, and is closely 

 related to, if not identical with, a species found at the Falkland Islands, Cape 

 Horn, South Shetland, and South Georgia. In the Otago Museum there is 

 also a skull that appears to belong to the sea elephant {Morunga proboscidea) . 

 Mr. Purdie informed me that it was picked up a long way inland. 



Of the Cetacea some twelve or thirteen species are known, belonging to the 

 six different families into which the marine members of this order have been 

 divided, and it is remarkable that two thirds of them are endemic, that is not 

 found anywhere else. Our two or three sjDecies of whale-bone whale have, 

 up to the present, been found nowhere else. The sperm whale of our 

 northern coasts is probably the same species as that found in Australia and 

 the South Pacific (Catodon australis). It is certainly distinct from the 

 northern sjoerm whale {C macrocephalus) as the lower jaw is much narrower.* 



Our ziphoid whales, of which we have three or four species, are all 

 endemic, and two of them {Berardius arnuxii and Mesoplodon hectori) belong 

 to genera not found elsewhere. None, however, of our Delphiniidce are 

 confined to New Zealand. Delphinus novce-zealandice inhabits the antarctic 

 seas, and perhaps Tasmania ; Lagenorhynchus clanculus is found throughout 

 the Pacific Ocean, but not in Australia, and Orca capensis, a lower jaw of 

 which is in the Auckland Museum, ranges from the Cape of Good Hope 

 through the Southern Ocean to Chili, and is also found in the North Pacific 

 and Tasmania. The black-fish (^Glohiocephalus macrorhynchus) is found in the 

 South Pacific and Japan, but not in Australia. Our Cetacea therefore, 

 contrary to what might have been expected, show a nearer relation to the 

 Pacific and Antarctic Oceans than they do to Australia, and it is remarkable 

 that no species of porpoise has as yet been described as found in New Zealand, 

 although two inhabit Tasmania., 



The absence of terrestrial Mammalia is one of the chief points of interest in 

 New Zealand zoology, as it proves that there has been no land communica- 

 tion between tbis country and Australia since the latter was inhabited by 

 Marsupials, for I consider that the so-called Maori rat and native dog were 

 both introduced by human agency.t 



* Capt. Cook remarks in his first voyage that rats were "so scarce that many of us 

 never saw them." (Hawkesworth's " Coll. of Voy.," HI., p. 34.) He makes no mention 

 of them ever being used for food, and I am not aware of any remains of rats having been 

 as yet found m Maori cooking places. 



t A lower jaw of the New Zealand sperm whale in the Auckland Museum is 17 ft. 

 7 in. in length, and only 2 ft. 2 in. in width at the condyles ; there are 23 teeth on each 

 side, 4 of which are rudimentary only ; the length of the largest tooth is 7 '4 in. 



