CocKiiUEN-HooD.— 3tV/f Zfalaiid a Piist-;/larial Centre of Creation. 28 



lauded iu excellent health and sijirits on the deck of a vessel in the Pacific, 

 half that distance from the Australian coast. 



If such a fortunate chance occurred, which, however, is scarce iDOSsible, 

 and gave a somewhat faker start to the higher forms of life in New Zealand, 

 their ofi'spring have devoured the race of thek ancestors, as until very 

 recently frogs were unknown tliere ; now introduced from Australia in some 

 localities they croak from every pond their appreciation of its swamps, safe 

 from destroying snakes. Touching these same frogs, it appears to have 

 been a want of judgment in their various descendants, a blunder justifying 

 the term of " the aimless action of natural selection," not to have gone on 

 improving and perfecting the attributes possessed by them. None of then.' 

 progeny being able to jum^j about and avoid obstacles in their path after 

 the connection between the brain and limbs has been severed, one would 

 imagme that the course of progressive development should have imj^roved, 

 instead of arresting the advantageous capacity enjoyed by some of their 

 analogues and remote progenitors of producii% new limbs, and even 

 heads, when accident removes the original ones. 



On the whole most persons will prefer to consider the moas the long 



descended aboriginal inhabitants of this land where they have reigned lords 



amongst Vvdngless birds from the far distant era when it formed a portion of 



a great continent, which on the score of antiquity has equal right to be 



, delineated on the maj) of the old world as Lemuria. 



All that is now land has been sea, and the seas land, not once, but pro- 

 bably over, and over, and over again, and as a continuity of the various 

 dry portions of the globe has at one time or another existed (excepting, of 

 course, new lauds like the Gallapagos and other volcano-born isles), the 

 ancient connection explains how it came to pass that wingless birds 

 descended from the same original created type are found in South America, 

 in Africa, and in all these islands of the sea. 



It seems easier to believe iu the tertiary men, who might if they 

 desired, have gone to war mounted on Auchitheriums (for we may be per- 

 mitted to take for granted that there may have been a family of these 

 creatures large enough to carry their short-legged, ape-like riders), who 

 were there to witness, we are told, the coming upon the stage of the 

 elephantine races, and all the many quaint-looking giant creatures, long 

 passed away, than to imagine that their descendants could have been pre- 

 sent at the birth of the first taniwha-descended, post-glacial moa. 



Certainly the supporters of this idea may suggest that some of the 

 tertiary men devoted themselves during the long pliocene ages (which, when 

 it suits his argument, are reduced to moderate periods by Professor Haeckel), 

 to the breeding of birds without wuags, and achieved in the pursuit success 



