THE ORIGIN OF THE FAUNA AND FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 251 
ing plants (excluding the grasses) common to New Zealand and 
Australia (including Tasmania) are only twice as many as those 
common to New Zealand and S. America, while the grasses are 
only three times as many. Even the sea-weeds do not agree in 
distribution with the marine fishes, for while the number of 
species common to New Zealand and S. America is rather larger 
than the number common to New Zealand and S. Africa, the 
species common to New Zealand and Australia are only about 
twice as numerous as those common to New Zealand and S. 
America. The fresh-water fishes show the same thing ; five are 
common to New Zealand and Australia, and two to New Zealand 
and S. America. Evidently then the communication between 
New Zealand and Patagonia has been easier for marine crustacea, 
fresh-water fishes, and plants, at some former period.than it is 
now; and this could only have been caused by some interme- 
diate land having formerly existed. 
This is quite in accordance with the opinion of Sir J. Hooker, 
who thinks that possibly the “plants of the Southern Ocean are 
the remains of a flora that had once spread over a larger and 
more continuous tract of land than now exists in that ocean ; 
and that the peculiar Antarctic genera and species may be the 
vestiges of a flora characterised by the predominance of plants 
which are now scattered throughout the southern islands.’* And 
again, “ The supposition that more land formerly existed along 
the parallels between Fuegia and Kerguelen’s Land, possibly in 
the form of islands, remains the forlorn hope of the botanical 
geographer.’} Mr. Moseley also considers more land to be ne- 
cessary to account for the almost identical floras of Kerguelen’s 
Land, the Crozets, and Marion Islands ;{ and Mr. Wallace comes 
to the same conclusion in his “ Island Life.” 
As some doubt may still remain as to the necessity of sup- 
posing a greater extension of land in former times, it will be as 
well to compare the floras and faunas of New Zealand and Tas- 
mania. We know that the high lands of both these places have 
never been submerged during the whole of the tertiary era, and 
that although at present separated by about goo miles of ocean, 
they have probably approached to about 600 miles. A compa- 
rison therefore of their floras and faunas will furnish a very in- 
structive example of the powers of dispersion of plants and 
animals across the sea. | 
Baron von Miller enumerates 948 species of Tasmanian 
flowering plants, while the South Island of New Zealand has 688 
species, and of these 103 are common to both—~z. e. about 634 
per cent. of the whole. According to Dr. Buller’s “ Manual” 
(1880) ninety-seven land birds have been recorded from New 
Zealand. Of these 53 are perching birds, and 44 are waders or 
rails. In Tasmania, according to Mr. E. P. Ramsay (1877), there 
are 107 land birds—viz., 78 perchers and 29 waders or rails. Of 
* Flora Nov. Zeal., intr. p. xxi. (1853). 
+ Phil. Trans., Vol. 168, p. 13 (1879) 
¢ Linn, Journ,, XV., p. 485. 
