408 TROPICAL NATURE VI 
purple or blue, three lilac, and two red or pink, showing a 
very similar proportion of white and yellow flowers to what 
obtains farther south. 
We have, however, a remarkable flora in the southern 
hemisphere, which affords a crucial test of the theory of greater 
intensity of light being the direct cause of brilliantly-coloured 
flowers. The Auckland and Campbell’s islands, south of New 
Zealand, are in the same latitude as the middle and the south 
of England, and the summer days are therefore no longer 
than with us. The climate, though cold, is very uniform, 
and the weather “very rainy and stormy.” It is evident, 
then, that there can be no excess of sunshine above what we 
possess, yet in a very limited flora there are a number of 
flowers which—Sir Joseph Hooker states—are equal in 
brilliancy to those of the arctic flora. These consist of 
brilliant gentians, handsome veronicas, large and magnificent 
Composite with purple flowers, bright ranunculi, showy 
Umbellifere, and the golden-flowered Chrysobactron Rossii, 
one of the finest of the Asphodelew.! All these fine plants, 
it must be remembered, are peculiar to these islands, and 
have therefore been developed under the climatal conditions 
that prevail there ; and as we have no reason to suppose that 
these conditions have undergone any recent change, we may 
be quite sure that an excess of light has had nothing to do 
with the development of these exceptionally bright and hand- 
some flowers. Unfortunately we have no information as to 
the insects of these islands, but from their scarcity in New 
Zealand we can hardly expect them to be otherwise than very 
scarce. There are, however, two species of honey-sucking 
birds (Prosthemadera and Anthornis), as well as a small 
warbler (Myiomoira); and we may be pretty sure that the 
former at least visit these large and handsome flowers, and 
so effect their fertilisation. The most abundant tree on the 
islands is a species of Metrosideros, and we know that trees 
of this genus are common in the Pacific islands, where they 
are almost certainly fertilised by the same family of Meli- 
phagide or honey-sucking birds. 
I have now concluded this sketch of the general pheno- 
1 Coloured figures of all these plants are given in the Flora Antarctica, vol. i. 
