280 C. HEDLEY. 
groups of animals and plants of these countries may be 
consulted.? 
We may compare the shattered biological monuments of 
Tasmania and South America to the broken columns found by 
Oriental travellers in the ruined and deserted cities of a vanished 
civilisation. And as an archeologist may restore from such frag- 
ments the fallen temples or disused acqueducts, so may a naturalist 
trace the missing arches of life that once spanned the gap. Some 
of the efforts to do so may be here reviewed. 
Prof. Hutton has conjectured? that such a bridge spanned the 
South Pacific from Chili to Samoa and thence to New Zealand. 
Claiming South American relations for the New Zealand fauna 
and flora, he accounts for their entry into New Zealand by this 
assumed bridge. Against Prof. Hutton’s arguments it may be 
urged that though the relation of New Zealand to South America 
is indisputable, it is less than between the latter and Tasmania ; 
and that the demand for a former union may be satisfied by 
supposing an approach but not a connection with Antarctica. 
1 For ——. see Darwin, a Beagle, p. 236; mosses, Mueller, Trans. 
N.Z. Inst., . 428: grasses, Buchanan, Indigenous Grasses ‘of New 
Zealand ; set ‘Kirk, the Forest Flora of New Zealand ; lichens, Shitlep 
Proce. oe Soc. Queensland, Vol. x., p. 54; earthworms, Bed rd, A 
Inst., 1895, p. 177; diptera, Skuse, Proc. Austr. Asso Ad. Science, ! 
pp. 526-540 and Osten Sacken, Berliner elise? Zeit., Bd. x%# 
likeness between southern faunas will grow more apparent. 
2 On the Origin of the Fauna and Flora of New Zealand—New . 426. 
Journal of Science, 11., p. 1-249; and Ann. Mag. N. H., (5) XUt» P. 
