Page:The Kea, a New Zealand problem (1909).pdf/146

142 not think the Kea or Kaka were ever numerous in the Chatham Islands, as their remains are rare in comparison with the other fossil avi-fauna.”

From the number of fossils already discovered, there seems to have been a much larger avi-fauna on the islands than at present.

This is supported by a pamphlet written by Dr. Arthur Dendy, (then Professor of Biology, Canterbury College), who visited these islands in 1901.

He says:—“All who have studied the question are agreed that the fauna and flora of the Chatham Islands are simply isolated detachments of those of New Zealand, although the striking differences which we have had occasion to notice imply a long period of isolation. This view of the case requires us to believe that the islands, though now separated by 400 miles of open ocean, were at one time either actually connected with the New Zealand mainland, or, at any rate, much more nearly so than at the present day, a belief which is strongly supported by the fact that the sea between New Zealand and the Chathams is comparatively shallow, only from 500 to 1000 metres in depth, while further to the east it sinks at once to 4,500 metres (Diels). In the Upper Pliocene period it is probable that the area of New Zealand was greatly extended so as to embrace, for example, Chatham Islands in the east, Lord Howe Island in the north-west, Auckland and Campbell Islands in the south. . . . . . This condition is supposed to have lasted on into the Pleistocene times, and to have been followed by another depression, which left the islands very much in their present condition. The former land connection thus roughly sketched out, together with the ocean current already referred to, would be quite sufficient to account for the great resemblance between the fauna and flora of the Chatham Islands and those of New Zealand.”

The geology of the islands seems to indicate that they once formed part of the large area, as is shown by the presence of schists and similar rocks, while the finding of limestone seems to point to a depression at a later period.