ISLAND LIFE. 



[part II. 



species, could have reached the places where they are now 

 found ; and this gives us an idea of the complete series of 

 changes through which New Zealand is believed to have passed 

 in order to bring about its abnormally dense population of wing- 

 less birds. First, we must suppose a land connection with some 

 country inhabited by struthious birds, from which the ancestral 

 forms might be derived ; secondly, a separation into many con- 

 siderable islands, in which the various distinct species might 

 become differentiated ; thirdly, an elevation bringing about the 

 anion of these islands to unite the distinct species in one 

 area ; and fourthly, a subsidence of a large part of the area, 

 leaving the present islands with the various species crowded 

 together. 



If New Zealand has really gone through such a series of 

 changes as here suggested, some proofs of it might perhaps be 

 obtained in the outlying islands which were once, presumably, 

 joined with it. And this gives great importance to the state- 

 ment of the aborigines of the Chatham Islands, that the 

 Apteryx formerly lived there but was exterminated about 1835. 

 It is to be hoped that some search will be made here and also in 

 Norfolk Island, in both of Avhich it is not improbable remains 

 either of Apteryx or Dinornis might be discovered. 



So far we find nothing to object to in the speculations of 

 Captain Hutton, with which, on the contrary, we alm.ost wholly 

 concur ; but we cannot follow him when he goes on to suggest an 

 Antarctic continent uniting New Zealand and Australia with 

 South America, and probably also with South Africa, in 

 order to explain the existing distribution of struthious birds. 

 Our best anatomists, as we have seen, agree that both Dinornis 

 and Apteryx are more nearly allied to the cassowaries and emus 

 than to the ostriches and rheas ; and we see that the form of 

 the sea-bottom suggests a former connection with North Aus- 

 tralia and New Guinea — the very region where these types 

 most abound, and where in all probability they originated. The 

 suggestion that all the struthious birds of the world sprang 

 from a common ancestor at no very remote period, and that 

 their existing distribution is due to direct land communication 

 between the countries they noiv inhabit, is one utterly opposed 



