THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 71 
of bringing these two birds together, or attempting to explain 
how they were forced apart, is beyond me, but the fact that 
New Zealand still possesses a large number of very distinct 
ralline birds, including the famous Notornis—first described as 
a fossil, and afterwards found alive—and the wood-hens, one 
of which reaches Norfolk Island, may indicate that the 
ancestors of the kagu were also found in New Zealand. Some 
of the New Zealand cormorants show affinity to certain South 
American species. On Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands two 
birds are found which are, to all intents and purposes, first 
cousins to the Hnglish blackbird, though no members of the 
genus (Merula) are found either in Australia or New Zealand. 
A thickhead, robin,and shining starling are also found on Norfolk 
Island to connect it with Australia, as well as the silver-eyes, 
while the wood-hen and wandering kingfisher, and, more 
particularly, a parrot (Nestor), link the island to New Zealand. 
The New Zealand birds are, in part, closely allied to those of 
Australia, and, in part, the remnant of a very ancient bird 
fauna. This latter is so interesting and so distinct that it is 
questionable whether it does not justify the colony ranking as 
a separate faunal region. ‘he chief evidence that New Zealand 
was once joined to Norfolk Island, New Caledonia and New - 
Guinea is found in the fact that two cuckoos—the long-tailed 
and the shining—still migrate between New Guinea and New 
Zealand along this route, going and coming every year, and 
travelling long distances over the sea. Certain migratory 
plovers also perform this journey, and also visit Fiji and the 
neighbouring islands. 
It is impossible to present any considerable portion of the 
evidence available within the limits of a couple of pages of 
this journal, but the conclusions arrived at, after a cursory 
survey of the birds of the Pacific islands, are as follows:— 
New Zealand was at one period joined, with Norfolk Island, 
New Caledonia, Fiji, the New Hebrides, Solomons and New 
Guinea, to Australia in one continental mass, cleft from the 
south along the Australian coast by the Tasman Sea. A 
eradual subsidence early isolated New Caledonia, Norfolk Island 
and New Zealand, still one land mass, from a second land mass 
composed of Australia, New Guinea, the Solomons, New 
Hebrides and Fiji, thongh possibly Norfolk Island and New 
Caledonia had some chain of connection with the New Hebrides 
and Fiji after the present islands of New Zealand were isolated. 
The weak point in the argument is the fact that the only land 
mammals of New Zealand are two bats, which seems to argue 
against an absolute land connection. 
However, I leave my theorising at that, with a free admission 
that the theory is not by any means entirely new. The subject 
is a fascinating one, and if I have,in my ignorance of a fascinat- 
ing branch of science, rushed in where geologists fear to tread, 
I trust to be duly corrected. 
