CHAPTER XXVII 



THE STRANGE STORY OF ANIMAL LIFE IN 

 NEW ZEALAND 



NEW ZEALAND consists of two islands, together 

 more than a looo miles long and of about 

 200,000 square miles area. It is lOOO miles distant 

 from New Caledonia, the nearest island of any consider- 

 able size, and is 1500 miles from the great Continental 

 island of Australia. There is no other island in the 

 world so large and at the same time so remote from other 

 considerable tracts of land. Australia is closely connected 

 by island groups at a distance of only lOO miles to 

 Asia. The isolation of New Zealand is unique. The 

 seas around it are of vast depth and of proportionately 

 great age. During the chalk period — before the great 

 deposits and changes of the earth's face which we assign 

 to the Tertiary period — New Zealand consisted of a 

 number of small scattered islands, which gradually, as 

 the floor of the sea rose in that part of the world, became 

 a continent stretching northward and joining New Guinea. 

 In that very ancient time the land was covered with 

 ferns and large trees. Birds (as we now know them) had 

 only lately come into existence in the northern hemisphere, 

 and when New Zealand for a time joined that area the 

 birds, as well as a few lizards and one kind of frog, 

 migrated south and colonised the new land. It is 

 probable that the very peculiar lizard-like reptile of New 



