SURVIVING REFUGEES OF ANCIENT ANTARCTIC LIFE. 279 
forests, of what kind were the frogs and snails they sheltered, and 
of what form were the fish that swam in those streams. 
Early scientific travellers' remarked that the converging con- 
tinental masses of the southern world held as common stock certain 
forms of life. Closer enquiry elicited that these common forms 
were primitive, often isolated types, survivors of some ancient 
population overwhelmed and slaughtered by invaders from the 
north. South Africa was found to stand somewhat apart from 
the closer bond which united Tasmania and Australia to New 
Zealand and South America, while New Zealand is in turn poorer 
actually, if not comparatively, than Tasmania in South American 
_ affinities. 
“Community of type,” writes Dr. Gill,? “ must be the expression 
of community of origin . . . and recent paleontological finds 
indicate that even the Thylacinids (or at least forms resembling 
them) were formerly natives of southern America . . . The 
freshwater fishes [of New Zealand] must have been derived from 
the same common source as those of the isothermal portions of 
Australia (of course including Tasmania), and southern America. 
There may not have been a continuity of land at any one time 
between South America, Australia, and New Zealand, but, at 
Some remote period in the past, it is at least possible that there 
Was a region in which Galaxids and Haplochitonids were developed, 
and subsequently representatives of those families might have 
found their way into the regions where they now abound.” 
An enumeration of the genera common to South America, New 
Zealand and Tasmania, and therefore probably of Antarctic origin 
would exceed the limits of this paper. Forbes* quotes numerous 
Instances, and for more exhaustive data monographs of imost 
ate ee 
: ee i ae 
y J.D. Hooker, on the Huon Pine, &c.—London Journal of Botany, 
Ol. Tv., 1845, pp. 187 — 
A comparison of Antipodal Faunas—National Academy of Sciences, 
Vol. v1., p. 108, 
3 
TI. 
me | 
Antarctica, 4 Supposed former Southern Continent—Natural Science 
- 54-57, 
