540 Proceedings. 



recorded, would be valuable, by remaining unrecorded are lost to science. This is a 

 matter much to be regretted, more especially when we consider the remarkable position 

 which New Zealand occupies as a field for scientific enquiry. 



As you are doubtless aware, the soundings taken by the "Challenger" between 

 Australia and New Zealand during the late scientific voyage of that vessel, have shown 

 ns that there is indeed between these two countries a very great gulf ; for although it 

 appears that for some 250 miles to the westward of New Zealand the depth of the sea 

 increases slowly and is comparatively small, it also appears that, beyond that distance, 

 the depth increases with great rapidity, ultimately reaching 2,60§ fathoms, or sufficient 

 to submerge the highest points of the Southern Alps. It is in no degree surprising, 

 therefore, that little analogy has been found to exist between the natural productions of 

 these two countries, for it has been found, for example, in the case of the Indo- and 

 Austro-Malayan divisions of the Malay Archipelago, that a comparatively small expanse of 

 deep water has been sufficient to account for imm.ense diversities in natural productions, 

 even between places which correspond in their main physical and climatal conditions. 

 It is, moreover, well ascertained that the present distribution of life over the surface of 

 the globe is the result of the latest changes which have taken place upon that surface, and 

 it is therefore abundantly clear that, if New Zealand had ever been connected by land 

 with the Australian continent, it must have retained some of the peculiar types of life 

 which characterize that country. Singularly enough, the analogies of our fauna and flora 

 are far more with those of South America and the southern parts of Africa than with 

 those of Australia, indicating, indeed, a former land connection between these several 

 places, notwithstanding the enormous expanse of sea by which they are now separated. 



I may here mention one very curious instance of this analogy. Amongst the more 

 remarkable insects of New Zealand is the Peripatus, a creature only found in decaying 

 wood, upon which it probably feeds, and which resembles an ordinary caterpillar in its 

 appearance. But this insect never passes to the pupa or imago stages, being oviparous 

 in the larval condition, and is absolutely incapable of passing alive over even the smallest 

 space of salt-water. Now the same insect is found in Chili and at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and in both cases under precisely the same conditions as in New Zealand. But 

 no such insect is found in any part of Australia or Tasmania. It will be remembered, 

 moreover, that the vegetation of the south-western coasts of South America resembles, 

 in a remarkable degree, that of the western coasts of the South Island, so much so, 

 indeed, that Mr. Darwin's vivid and interesting description of the former might almost 

 be applied verbatiiii to the latter district. The same differences exist between the 

 natural productions of Australia on the one hand, and of the islands immediately to the 

 northward of New Zealand (such as Norfolk Island and New Caledonia) on the other, 

 whilst considerable analogy exists between those of our islands and of the islands to the 

 northward. 



But a careful consideration of our own fauna and flora leads to the further conclu- 

 sion that New Zealand has occupied an isolated position, as a zoological and botanical 

 province, for a vast period of time, and the circumstance that, until quite recently, it 

 was unvisited by civilized man, and was therefore saved from a class of interferences 

 calculated to exercise a profound modifying influence upon its natural productions, 

 invests those productions with the very greatest interest in a scientific point of view. It 

 becomes our duty, under such circumstances, to exercise the utmost diligence in observa- 

 tion and in the collection of facts to be afterwards used in our attempts to solve the 

 problems which the character of our fauna and flora offer for solution. 



