HIGHLAND PLANTS FROM NEW GUINEA. 45 
Why so many plants from cold southern latitudes suddenly reappear on the 
Papuan and perhaps also on the Borneon highlands in evidently coeval forms of 
common origin; why the highest regions and these almost only should like in New 
Zealand reiterate plant-life, otherwise typical of Tasmania, of continental Australia, 
of islands in the Southern Ocean and also of Fuegia and Patagonia; whether this 
indicates a continuity of portions of the Papuan Island with a once vastly extending 
southern land, now mostly submerged ; what clues can be obtained for all this from 
the study of glacial drifts occurring during former enormous telluric changes, such as 
geologic science endeavours to explain ; what part possibly could have been taken by 
any migratory birds in effecting so wide a dispersion of some of these plants even 
into so exceptional isolations ; all this and other momentous considerations, involved 
in these questions, must be reserved for future discussions and generalisations in a 
special essay, perhaps under the advantage of access to ampler working material, and 
at not too distant a day. 
