252 Transactions. — Zoology. 



by a chain of islands. This second continent received from the north those 

 forms ah'eady enumerated together probably with Sphenoeacus, the rails, and 

 the starlings ; at the same time it received from Australia the honey-eaters, 

 Certliiparus, Gerygone, Petroica, Rhipidura and others, and from that time to 

 the present has been occasionally receiving additional birds. It will also be 

 noticed that very few of the birds of the middle palseotropical region came 

 down this line of communication, no pheasants, woodjoeckers, grackles nor 

 finches, while Australia in its wood-swallows (Artamus), pittas, quails, and 

 numerous finches, shows now some afiinity to this region. This can be best 

 explained by supposing that the New Zealand line of communication was 

 broken up before these birds came into existence, and that further changes 

 have since taken place in the lines of easiest communication ; indeed, the fact 

 of such forms as the elephant, tiger, and bear being found in Sumatra and 

 Borneo ; Marsupials in Celebes, the Moluccas, Solomon Islands, and New 

 Hebrides; and the presence of an emu in New Guinea, and a cassowary in 

 Australia, prove that changes in the distribution of land have since taken 

 place, but it is foreign to the object of this paper to speculate on these here. 

 This second continent was also inhabited by most of the orders of insects, 

 although perhaps not in great abundance, but Jleteroptera and the butterfly 

 section of the Lepidoptera were absent. 



3. Subsidence again followed, and New Zealand was reduced for a long 

 time to a number of islands, upon many of which the moa lived. This was 

 followed by — 



4 Elevation ; these islands were connected and a large island existed 

 disconnected from Polynesia. This was once more followed by — 



5. Subsidence, and the geography of this part of the world assumed 

 somewhat of its present form. 



Geological Evidence. 



Such are, I think, the deductions that may be fairly drawn from a study 

 of our fauna. It remains now to examine the geological and palseontological 

 evidence and see whether it agrees with that derived from zoology, and then 

 tiy to fix with as much accuracy as possible the dates of the principal 

 movements of the earth's surface which have gradually led to the present 

 state of the New Zealand fauna. 



Hardly anything is yet known of the palaeozoic rocks of New Zealand. 

 The earliest fossil shells described are almost identical with those living in 

 Europe during the triassic period, but the only known plant is Dammara 

 australis (Hochstetter's " New Zealand," p. 57), a genus still living in New 

 Zealand, but also found in Australia, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Fiji, 

 and the Indian Archipelago. 



