CHAPTER VIII. 
The Fauna. 
Remarkable scarcity of land-mammalia. — Introduced domestic animals- — * Pigs. — 
Progs. — Lizards. — A large salamander. — Sea-serpents. — Fishes. — Singing-birds. — 
I lie Nestor. — The night-parrot. — Swamp-fowl and sea-birds. — Mollusca. — Land-shells. — 
Insects. I he Wlieta. — Mosquitoes and sand-flies. — JBlalt.a. — The vegetating caterpillar. — 
Crustacea. 
On looking over the Fauna of New Zealand, the almost total 
lack of land-mammalia appears , no doubt, to the observer as strik- 
ingly peculiar, as the singular substitution found in the shape of 
the wingless birds, some species of which, continuing in all pro- 
bability into the present times, attained a gigantic size such as 
all the rest of the world has never produced. 
Although from certain terms occurring in the Maori language, 
and from the most recent observations wo may infer beyond a 
doubt, that New Zealand still harbours some few sporadic mam- 
malia, which have thus far escaped the searching eye of science; 
yet, as regards the number of mammalia, this extensive insular 
country is surpassed by many far smaller islands of the South Sea. 
While upon islands of inconsiderable dimensions there arc various 
gnawing animals, peculiar shrew-mice and bats living in trees; while 
upon the Marianas a deer even is found, — New Zealand possesses 
only two distinctly proven genera, the bat ( Pekapekci , two species) 
and a small indigenous rat (Kiorej ; and even this little quadruped 
