New Zealand Flora , with a Reply to Criticism. 351 
remain as incomprehensible, just as the special creationists considered 
was the case with the fact that such and such species occurred in one 
country, such and such in another. 
The position of the natural selectionists is based upon assumption, 
whereas age and area is already supported by numerous incontrovertible 
facts, which are being rapidly increased by new work, and every prediction 
as yet made by its aid has been verified. Why does not Ranunculus 
Lyaltii occur in the North Island, where there are fewer Ranunculi to com¬ 
pete with, fewer species of every kind, a less strenuous competition 
generally. Natural Selection cannot hope to explain this fact, but can only 
accept it as a fact, whereas age and area simply explains it as being 
so because it was not evolved in time to reach the North Island before the 
formation of Cook’s Strait. 
In many cases, no doubt, but in few compared to those in which it is 
not so, there is a certain amount of geological evidence of former greater 
spread, but that is no evidence that the species is dying out where it now 
exists, unless man has altered the conditions. It is almost impossible at 
the present juncture to lay too much stress upon the influence of man, for 
Natural Selection has been so largely supported upon evidence of what has 
happened under that influence, without any evidence that it would happen 
under unchanged conditions. 
I have already been very fully into this question, but as it is the 
principal argument brought forward by those who are opposed to age and 
area, it may be as well to bring up other points in this connexion. I may 
commence by enumerating the chief points of a recent paper (20). 
(1) The regular arrangement of my figures demands that youth be 
substituted in detail for age in my hypothesis, if endemics are to be 
regarded as older. This may be youth within the country, or absolute 
youth. 
(2) Absolute youth is somewhat discredited by the fact that range 
within the country does not depend upon range outside. 
(3) Youth within the country—the logical reversal of age and area— 
has no conceivable connexion with area occupied, and leads to various 
absurdities, besides involving much rising and falling in the scale of 
commonness (area of distribution) for which we have no warrant. 
(4) The dying out (assuming that it is occurring) of the endemics is 
purely mechanical, every family and genus behaving in the same way, 
whether it has or has not wides, and whatever its habit of growth, its 
origin (local or foreign), or its distribution generally. The usual type of 
distribution is that shown in the distribution map of Doona ( 18 , p. 14), or 
in that of Haastia , &c., above. 
(5) The wides of New Zealand take no notice of Cook’s Strait in their 
distribution, while the endemics do. 
A a 
