494 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Australia and countries to the north as well as New Zealand. Coriaria, 

 Fuchsia, and Callixene are the only New Zealand genera with succulent 

 fruits which occur in South America, but not in Austraha, or any other 

 land to the north of New Zealand. When it is remembered that most of our 

 land birds are either characteristic of the Australian region or are allied to 

 Australian forms, a certain amount of light is thrown upon this subject. It 

 must not, however, be sujoposed that the possession or the want of succulent 

 fruit is a character of great importance or significance ; it is probably a very 

 minor character, as even in the same species (e.g., Gaultheria antipoda) we 

 may find great differences in the extent to which succulent tissue is 

 developed in the pericarp of the fruit. Still it constitutes one of those 

 minor coincidences, the sum of which, when taken together, throws con- 

 siderable light on this and kindred questions. 



Besides swallowing the fruits of plants and rejecting the seeds, birds 

 carry seeds attached to their plumage. A few grasses may be thus carried 

 by means of their hispid awns, and the seeds of some Pittosporums may 

 adhere by their glutinous surface, but with these exceptions I only know of 

 two genera which owe their means of dispersal to any special contrivance 

 which enables their seeds to adhere to passing objects ; these are Acana and 

 Uncinia. In the former genus, the four angles of the persistent calyx are 

 produced into spines, which in the majority of the species bear small barbs 

 at their apex, and the fruit thus adheres very readily ; the genus is confined 

 to the southern hemisphere, except in America, where it has spread as far 

 as Mexico and California, and in Polynesia as far as the Sandwich Islands. 

 The occurrence of the barb is a very peculiar feature in the New Zealand 

 species. The common xiirip)iri [A. sanguisorbce) is a native of Australia, 

 Tasmania, and Tristan d'Acunha, as well as New Zealand, and the calyx- 

 spines are always barbed. A. aclscendens, another barbed species, occurs also 

 in Fuegia and the Falkland Islands, while A. novcB-zealandicz, a third barbed 

 species, though endemic, is altogether too near A. sangnisorh(B to rank as an 

 exception. The other four species are also endemic, and of these A. depressa 

 bears barbs, while the other three, A. microphylla, buchanani, and inermis, are 

 almost entirely without them. The barbs, while no doubt of use in adher- 

 ing to the feathers of birds, are best fitted to stick to the hair and skin of 

 passing animals, and I think that in these smooth-spined Accsnas we have a 

 case of loss of an organ through disuse. 



The other specially furnished genus is Uncinia, sedges which occur 

 chiefly in the southern hemisphere, but range as far north as the mountains 

 of Abyssinia. The seed in every species is furnished with a long hooked 

 bristle which springs from the base of the nut, and projects out of the 

 utricle or sac enclosing the fruit. Our species are mostly endemic, but one 



