510 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part it. 
New Zealand is shown to be so completely continental in 
its geological structure, and its numerous wingless birds so 
clearly imply a former connection with some other land (as do 
its numerous lizards and its remarkable reptile, the Hatteria), 
that the total absence of indigenous land-mammalia was hardly 
to be expected. Some attention is therefore given to the curious 
animal which has been seen but never captured, and this is 
shown to be probably identical with an animal referred to by 
Captain Cook. The more accurate knowledge which has 
recently been obtained of the sea bottom around New Zealand 
enables us to determine that the former connection of that island 
with Australia was towards the north, and this is found to agree 
well with many of the peculiarities of its fauna. 
The flora of New Zealand and that of Australia are now both 
so well known, and they present so many peculiarities, and 
relations of so anomalous a character, as to present in Sir Joseph 
Hooker’s opinion an almost insoluble problem. Much additional 
information on the physical and geological history of these two 
countries has, however, been obtained since the appearance of 
Sir Joseph Hooker’s works, and I therefore determined to apply 
to them the same method of discussion and treatment which has 
been usually successful with similar problems in the case of 
animals. The fact above noted, that New Zealand was con- 
nected with Australia in its northern, tropical portion only, of 
itself affords a clue to one portion of the specialities of the New 
Zealand flora — the presence of an unusual number of tropical 
families and genera, while the temperate forms consist mainly of 
species either identical with those found in Australia or closely 
allied to them. But a still more important clue is obtained in 
the geological structure of Australia itself, which is shown to 
have been for long periods divided into an eastern and a western 
islaud, in the latter of which the highly peculiar flora of tem- 
perate Australia was developed. This is found to explain with 
great exactness the remarkable absence from New Zealand of 
all the most abundant and characteristic Australian genera, both 
of plants and of animals, since these existed at that time only 
in the western island, while New Zealand was in connection 
with the eastern island alone and with the tropical portion of 
