CHAP. XIII.] 
THE AUSTRALIAN REGION 
4C3 
perhaps, wholly been produced, in order to attract insects which aid 
in their fertilization — that in New Zealand, where insects are so 
strikingly deficient in variety, the flora should he almost as strik- 
ingly deficient in gaily-coloured blossoms. Of course there are some 
exceptions, but as a whole, green, inconspicuous, and imperfect 
flowers prevail, to an extent not to be equalled in any other part 
of the globe ; and affording a marvellous contrast to the general 
brilliancy of Australian flowers, combined with the abundance 
and variety of its insect-life. We must remember, too, that the 
few gay or conspicuous flowering-plants possessed by New Zea- 
land, are almost all of Australian, South American, or . European 
genera; the peculiar New Zealand or Antarctic genera being 
almost wholly without conspicuous flowers. In the tropical 
Galapagos the same thing occurs. Mr. Darwin notices the 
wretched weedy appearance of the vegetation ; and states that 
it was some time before he discovered that most of the plants 
were iD flo’wer at the time of his visit ! And the insect-life was 
correspondingly deficient, consisting mainly of a few terrestrial 
beetles. 
The poverty of insect-life in New Zealand must, therefore, be 
a very ancient feature of the country ; and it furnishes an addi- 
tional argument against the theory of land-connection with, or 
even any near approach to, either Australia, South Africa, or 
South America. For in that case numbers of winged insects 
would certainly have entered, and the flowers would then, as in 
every other part of the world, have been rendered attractive to 
them by the development of coloured petals ; and this character 
once acquired would long maintain itself, even if the insects had, 
from some unknown cause, subsequently disappeared. 
After the preceding paragraphs were written, it occurred to me, 
that if this reasoning were correct, New Zealand plants ought to 
be also deficient in scented flowers ; because it is a part of the 
same theory, that the odours of flowers have, like their colours, 
been developed to attract the insects required to aid in their fer- 
tilization. I therefore at once applied to my friend Dr. Hooker, 
as the highest authority on New Zealand botany ; simply asking 
whether there was any such observed deficiency. His reply was : — 
