482 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART II 



up fresh possibilities of migration; while the immense 

 antiquity thus given to the group and their universal 

 distribution in past time, renders all suggestions of special 

 modes of communication between the parts of the globe 

 in which their scattered remnants now happen to exist, 

 altogether superfluous and misleading. 



The bearing of this argument on our present subject is, 

 that so far as accounting for the presence of wingless birds 

 in New Zealand is concerned, we have nothing whatever 

 to do with any possible connection, by way of a southern 

 continent or antarctic islands, with South America and 

 South Africa, because the nearest, though still remote, 

 allies of its moas and kiwis are the cassowaries and emus, 

 and we have distinct indications of a former land extension 

 towards North Australia and New Guinea, which is exactly 

 what we require for the original entrance of the struthious 

 type into the New Zealand area. 



Winged Birds and Lower Verteh-ates of New Zealand. — 

 Having given a pretty full account of the New Zealand 

 fauna elsewhere I need only here point out its bearing 

 on the hypothesis now advanced, of the former land- 

 connection having been with North Australia, New 

 Guinea, and the Western Pacific Islands, rather than 

 with the temperate regions of Australia. 



Of the Australian genera of birds, which are found also 

 in New Zealand, almost every one ranges also into New 

 Guinea or the Pacific Islands, while the few that do not 

 extend beyond Australia are found in its northern dis- 

 tricts. As regards the peculiar New Zealand genera, all 

 whose affinities can be traced are allied to birds which 

 belong to the tropical parts of the Australian region; 

 while the starling family, to which four of the most 

 remarkable New Zealand birds belong (the genera 

 Creadion, Heterolocha, and Callseas), is totally wanting 

 in temperate Australia and is comparatively scarce in 

 the entire Australian region, but is abundant in the 

 Oriental region, with which New Guinea and the 

 Moluccas are in easy communication. It is certainly 

 a most suggestive fact that there are more than sixty 

 ^ Geographical DistrihUion of Animals, Vol. I. , p. 450. 



