5^ ANIMAL LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND 



.siting aside any very special and peculiar adaptations to 

 quite exceptional conditions in a given area, the living 

 things, whetherplants-oraninials, which are brought to or 

 naturally arrive at such an area, survive and supplant the 

 indigenous plants and animals of that area, if they them- 

 selves are kinds (species) produced or formed in a larger or 

 more variegated area ; that is to say, formed under severer 

 conditions of competition and of struggle with a larger 

 variety of competitors, enemies and adverse circumstances 

 in general. Thus, the plants of remote oceanic islands are 

 destroyed, and their place and their food are taken by the 

 more hardy "' capable " plants of Continental origin. And, 

 in accordance with the same principle, as Darwin especially 

 maintained, the plants of ±he northern hemisphere, pro- 

 duced as they are in a wide stretching belt of land — 

 Europe, temperate Asia, and North America — always push 

 their way down the great southern stretches of land (by 

 cool mountain roadways), and when they have arrived in 

 the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere, thfey 

 have at various geological epochs starved out, taken the 

 place of, or literally " supplanted " the native southern flora, 

 which in every case has been formed on a narrow, restricted 

 and peninsula-like area. The same greater " potency " of 

 the animals of the Holartic region has in the past established 

 them as intruders into South America, Ethiopia and India, 

 and has led to the inevitable survival of the animal of the 

 large area when brought into contact with the animal of 

 the small and restricted area. Applying these principles 

 to New Zealand, we see that no country, no area of land, 

 could have a worse chance for the survival of its animal 

 and vegetable children than that mysterious land, isolated 

 for many millions of years in the ocean,- the home of the 

 Tuatara, solitary survivor of an immensely remote geologic 

 •age, the undisturbed kingdom of huge birdiv, so easy-going 

 that they have ceased to fly, and have even lost theaf- wings ! 



