Summary of Results.] SUBANT ARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 801 



Kerguelen, thus confirming the statement made by Ehlers that many of the 

 commonest New Zealand Polychaeta are identical with those of the Magellan Strait, 

 Fuegia, and Chili. 



The relationship of the crustacean fauna of these islands and of New Zealand 

 to that of Tasmania and Australia seems perhaps a little closer than was previously 

 imagined. The fresh-water genus Chiltonia, which is found in New Zealand and its 

 subantarctic islands, is represented by several species in Tasmania and Victoria ; 

 and the fresh-water Atyloides aucklandicus from Auckland Island belongs to a genus 

 of which two species are found in the fresh waters of Victoria, though, as stated 

 above, the genus also contains marine species, and it is not very clearly marked 

 off from other closely allied genera. The terrestrial Isopod Oniscus punctatus is 

 also found in Tasmania and Australia. In the south of New Zealand occur a shore 

 Isopod, Actoecia euchroa, which is also found in Tasmania, and species of Phreatoicus, 

 a peculiar genus of fresh-water Isopods which has several species in Tasmania and 

 Victoria. Earthworms belonging to the subfamily Megascolicinae, which is so 

 widely distributed in Australia, are also found in these islands, including a species 

 of the characteristically Australian genus Plutellus, though, as mentioned above, 

 this may have been accidentally introduced into the islands by man. 



It is now well known that several groups of animals are exclusively confined to 

 south temperate and subantarctic seas. The case of the penguins has been referred 

 to by Beddard, Lydekkcj", Forbes, &c. This group contains numerous species which 

 at the present time are found on the Antarctic Continent, on the various subantarctic 

 islands, in New Zealand, Australia, South America, South Africa, and St. Paul (in 

 the Indian Ocean\ They are thus circumaustral and are confined to southern 

 seas, and have consequently been usually looked upon as a group that has arisen 

 in the south, probably on the shores of the Antarctic Continent. Their geological 

 history, so far as is known, fully bears this out, for fossil penguins are known from 

 New Zealand and from Patagonia, while recently the Swedish Antarctic Expedition 

 found on Seymour Island fossil remains of no less than six new genera of penguins 

 in beds of early Tertiary age, so that the group was numerous and varied at that 

 time. 



Among the fishes, the family Galaxiidae, which is widely distributed in the 

 southern regions and exclusively confined to them, has been already referred to, 

 and there are also marine fishes equally characteristic of southern seas. 



Of the earthworms we have the Notiodrilidae, with a distribution closely parallel 

 to that of the penguins ; but here, unfortunately, no palaeontological evidence of 

 the past history of the family is possible. 



Among the Crustacea the Parastacidae, a family of fresh-water crayfishes, is 

 confined to the Southern Hemisphere, and is represented by different genera in South 

 America, Madagascar, Australia, and New Zealand. These genera are already pretty 

 well marked off from one another, and doubtless show that they have long been 

 isolated, as would naturally be the case owing to their occupying different river- 

 basins, even if they were all on the same great continental area. The group, how- 

 ever, is well marked off from the Northern Hemisphere crayfishes, and probably 

 had its origin in the south. The Crustacea supply another example in the genus 

 Deto, which has been already referred to; this genus is so distinct that it is 

 52— S. 



