Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/405



New Zealand is as remarkable as it is botanically. But this is true mainly in a negative sense. In one case nature has been prodigal, in the other case it has been one-sided and parsimonious.

Within New Zealand's borders Nimrod would have found nothing worthy of his prowess, unless it were the long-extinct moa or an incarnated taniwha. Excepting what has been introduced, its land mammalia is confined to two species of bat. It has no snakes, no land reptiles, barring lizards, and with the exception of the katipo spider there are no poisonous insects.

In its avi-fauna New Zealand has been strangely and bountifully favored. It has land birds that cannot fly and migrating birds that cross oceans, even to remote Siberia. And in the days when some birds were far taller than men, it had gigantic avi-fauna of which single specimens were almost large enough for a tribal feast. Why has New Zealand been so generously blest with flora and so niggardly supplied with land fauna of the reptilian and mammalian branches? Why, as it seems to have been connected with Australia, has it no kangaroos or wombats, no duck-billed platypus, or any of the many species of snakes found in the island continent?