258 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
land and the islands, now widely separated, which surround it.* 
“ Chatham, Norfolk, and Lord Howe’s Islands are only the 
remnants of a more extended continent, and from this point of 
view my researches accord with those of Captain Hutton, Mr. 
Wallace, and those which M. Blanchard has just made known to 
us. There is one point, however, on which I do not agree with 
my learned teacher. I do not think that the Antarctic islands 
such as the Aucklands, Campbell, and Macquarrie have in former 
periods been united to New Zealand. If we find in the Auck- 
land Islands certain birds identical with those of the latter 
country, it is to be observed that they are species provided with 
powerful wings, such as the parroquets of the genus Cyanovamphus, 
which occur with almost insignificant variations of size and 
plumage from New Caledonia (C. sazsett:) to Macquarrie Island 
(C. erythrotis) ; their presence can therefore be explained by their 
transport across considerable extents of ocean. In the Auck- 
land Islands we find certain special ornithological forms which 
have never been described from New Zealand or elsewhere ; for 
example a duck and a puffin? (un Harle). None of the flight- 
less birds which are so characteristic of New Zealand, such 
as the Apteryx, Dinornis, Notornis, Ocydromus or Strigops, have 
ever been found either in the fossil or in the living state in 
the Auckland, Campbell,,- or Macquarrie Islands. 
“In researches on geographical zoology, very great importance 
must be attached to the means by which animals are enabled to 
find their way from one point to another, and the presence or 
absence of a certain species may be of far greater importance 
than the presence or absence of a very great number of other 
species. From this point of view the coefficient of importance 
of Ocydromus, Apteryx, or Strigops ought to be very high, while 
that of Parrots with long wings, or of little Passerine birds ought 
to remain very low. It is from considerations of this nature 
that I am disposed to think that the Auckland, Campbell, and 
Macquarrie Islands have not formed part of the New Zealand 
continent, to which, on the other hand, Lord Howe and Norfolk 
Islands on the north-west, and Chatham Island on the east, 
appear to have been joined.” 
M. E. Blanchard replied to these verbal observations as fol- 
fows :—“In recalling to our recollection his researches on the 
* He (M. A. Milne Edwards) has called attention to certain facts which appea™ 
to him to show that at an epoch not far distant from the present time, not only were 
the three portions of New Zealand in actual communication, but that regions which 
have since disappeared from sight united them more or less distinctly to certain 
islands of Polynesia; whereas no connection of this kind appears to have existed 
between New Zealand and Australia, America, or the ancient continents, since the 
period when mammalia first came into existence in these different parts of the world, 
(Report presented to the Acadamy, 24th November, 1874, by M. Roulin, in the 
name of the Commission appointed to award the Bordin prize.) 
t The researches made at Campbell Island by M. H. Filhol, during the Transit 
ot Venus Expedition, have furnished us with very complete details of the fauna of 
this island. 
