INTRODUCTION. 
XXXIX 
lo quote the language of one of the ablest and most liberal-minded of our theologians: — 
cience discloses the method of the World, Religion its cause, and there is no conflict between 
' n, except when either forgets its ignorance of what the other alone can know.” 
rpi . 
6 next P 01n t to be noticed is the comparative abundance, in comparison with the rest of our 
auna, of Rails, Ducks, and Cormorants. The first-named group contains in addition to Notornis 
11 d * ts a ^ C1 ^ f° rm > Porjahyrio, four, if not five, species of Ocydromus, three of Ilallus, two of Orty- 
gometra, and the diminutive Ocydromine representative in the Chatham Islands. Of Ducks, New 
ea and possesses 11 species, belonging to ten genera, this number being far in excess of the 
proportion of Anseres to the general number of birds in other countries of similar extent. Of these 
s, seren species are endemic, two of them (Nesonetta and Mergus) being confined to the small 
^ a °* ^ le Auckland. Islands. Of Shags or Cormorants, including two at present doubtful forms, 
in th'^ 6 n0 ^ SS ^ an ^ our ^ een s pecies, of which eight, if not nine, are endemic, so that New Zealand 
1S les P ect takes the palm against all competitors. Some of the species, too, are of singular 
whereas in all other parts of the world the members of this family are noted for their plain 
faces and sombre plumage. 
Seeing that New Zealand is so rich in Cormorants, it is indeed remarkable that there is no 
t” en ° US S ^ eC * eS ^°^ us i a form so characteristic of Australia on the one band and South America 
e othei. I have already recorded the occurrence of Plotus novce hollandice as a straggler, which 
es only to accentuate the inexplicable fact of its not being a native. 
10 entlle absence of Woodpeckers might have been expected, as these birds do not extend beyond 
es, neiei having been met with in the Moluccas or in Polynesia, New Guinea, or Australia. 
. . 18 to account for the non-appearance of Swifts and Swallows, except as occasional 
visitants from Australia. 
On the other hand, the Parrots are well represented. Besides the very typical Stringops lidbro- 
animal lifo upon it vy t 
nllipr- u i • ’ 6 lave a ^ ow time for those forgotten migrations of our race, for the previous rise of their religious and 
uioiei cultured ideas intheTTf^i? ■ • 
investigations t t] & and for the possible transmutation of animals from the saurians &c v revealed by geological 
preserved as ' ° * >1 . esen * i s P e °i ea - The several thousand years which have elapsed since some of the existing species were 
long period ^ mmics * n ^SJ’pt appear to have effected no change. But when we contemplate even 10,000 years as relatively a 
fall if able to reflect ° SOmew ^ a ^ ^ le natural state of error in which the mind of an ephemeral summer-day’s insect might 
the chrysalis it ^° m es ^ ma ^ es ^ me from duration of its own existence ? Living for one day after its rise from 
a century have alb ^ Conce * ve S ‘ X A days a long period for the life of the man who can crush it, just as we, able to live towards 
statement wich 'ill ^ s ' x ty centuries only for the duration of humanity upon the earth. The insect might fancy the 
a simile it do . " ^ reposterous if informed that our existences might extend to some 20,000 times the duration of its day. As 
25 55 Q t p, f S6em aU * rra ti°nal proportionate comparison by ‘ rule of three ’ to say that, as the insect’s one day is to tho 
completion 0 f p man ’ S ° H1 ‘ l T the human 70 years be to 1,788,500 years for tho life of the world, past and future, after the 
and about the thAt-* 1 ^ ^ orma fr° ns - If we allow about a fourth of these for the past changes of species (viz. 400,000 years), 
scientific culture th ^ ' y ears ) for man’s growth from infancy, from crude civilization to our present state of 
than nnr a '■ C0ln l ,ut;al 'i° n seems reasonable in the light of scientific facts. It is at all events more consonant with them 
“From ^ologyP-Oradle-lund of Arts and Creeds. 
the earth can ] lav ^ a ^° n _ 0 *' P os sihle sources of the heat of the sun, as well as from calculations of the period during' which 
William Thomson ^” n 8' about the present rate of increase of temperature as we descend beneath the surface, Sir 
maximum possible h ' that, the crust of the earth cannot have been solidified much longer than 100 million years (the 
putable $ r ° DI '^ oris )’ aD d this conclusion is held by Dr. Croll and other men of eminence to be almost indis- 
bv physicists is not & l aS t™ 6 r ^- U * rec * ^ or formation of the known stratified rocks, the hundred million years allowed 
demanded by Mr Dar ‘ ' am ^ L ’ P erm it of even more than an equal period anterior to the lowest Cambrian rocks, as 
Huxley and Professor If 1 a ^, man ^ su PP or ted and enforced by the arguments, taken from independent standpoints, of Professor 
