150 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
differences between many North and South Island species of 
plants and animals. One point to which special reference is 
made is the distribution of Perzpatus. This is stated to be con- 
fined to New Zealand, Chili, and the Cape of Good Hope; but 
at least two species are found in Trinidad, one having recently 
been described in the “Zoologischer Anzieger,” by Dr. J. v. 
Kennel. The object of Mr. Phillips’ paper is to refute the advo- 
cates of land-nationalisation, and to show how without their 
assistance we may prevent the accumulation of large landed pro- 
perties. His criticisms on the method of perpetual leasing, 
though no doubt just on his hypothesis, seem to be directed 
against some system other than the one proposed by Mr. Wal- 
lace. When he speaks of the state “selling and re-selling” the 
leases, the kind of lease he is thinking about must be more akin 
to the pastoral lease than to the so-called perpetual lease, which, 
whatever its name may be, is really a freehold burdened with a 
special land-tax. In another passage he lays stress on the diffi- 
culty of dispossessing the tenants when once settled on the land. 
“Tn New Zealand,” he says, “being a hilly country, we shall find 
that the people will become independent and cling to their land 
in spite of any laws that the Government may pass to the con- 
trary.” This may be true, and no doubt the advocates of nation- 
alisation hope it will prove so, inasmuch as their object is to put 
“perpetual” holders on the land. If the author means that the 
occupants will refuse to pay their rent or land tax, it may be 
observed that there is no @ friort reason for supposing that per- 
petual leasers will be less honest than other people, and that in 
case they should prove to be so, there can be no doubt that the 
strongest pressure will be put upon them by other tax-payers 
whose burdens must be increased by their defalcations. The 
system suggested as an improvement on that of nationalisation 
is the old Saxon one, known as Gavelkind, and still existing in 
the county of Kent. The advantage of this system is that it 
prevents the accumulation of large landed properties by com- 
pulsorily dividing a man’s land at his death among his sons. It 
seems to us rather hard that no provision is made for the daugh- 
ters, but the author of the paper is of a different opinion. “There 
is no necessity ” he tells us “ to divide the land among the female 
children of a family, as in a properly regulated state the males 
should support the females.” Unfortunately, New Zealand is 
so far from being properly regulated that we prefer the existing 
law, under which, in cases of intestacy, landed property, like move- 
ables, is divided among all the children. But, apart from this 
question of justice, we have the contention that the compulsory 
division of the land would place more workers upon it. In cases 
where estates had grown too large, their division might result as 
anticipated, but what would happen when they were too small ? 
What, for instance, would become of a farm of three hundred and 
twenty acres divided by say five in the first generation and 
twenty five in the second? Gavelkind, so far as its operation 
may be traced in France, Germany, etc., where somewhat similar 
