THE REAL NEW ZEALAND

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 23, 27 January 1934, Page 12

THE REAL NEW ZEALAND

"A REGION BY ITSELF"

REMNANTS OF PRIMEVAL BEAUTY

(By Johannes C. Andersen.)

The letter of "Putaputaweta" in Tuesday's '' Evening Post appeals to me very much; I 4 should like .to., con; gratulate tho correspondent on his advocacy for our real, and vanishing, New-Zealand; and big observations induce me to write of a quite recent experience; bearing "on the same subject.

An American , visitor was in the library a few days, ago, New Zealand being part of her itinerary on a leisurely world tour—the second enjoyed by-tier; and -whilst she showed a great interest in the Maoris,: finding..them a very fine and admirable race, she was particularly struck by the uniqueness of New Zealand in that it constituted a, little world in itself. In a few-days she' had been able to see thermal wonders at Rotorua, magnificent rivers, the Waikato and Wanganui, beautiful mountains, Egmont and the Bua-pehu-Tongoriro block, a magnificent lakej Waikaremoana^ and miles on miles of tropical forest teeming with natural songsters, the bush about Waikaremoana. All this in one - comparatively small .island, and a sisterisland could repeat most of the marvels, and excel several, an! add others. "It is a little world in itself," said she; "but what struck me particularly in. listening to the early morning song of your wonderful birds was your wonderful evergreen forest. It is not a tropical forest, and tropical is the only word which describes its appearance; why is it it strikes one as tropical?" T tried to tell her; and I should to tell your : readers a little of ■ the ancient, history of New Zealand,.so far as it can be conjectured, so that they may. gather some of the reasons for my love of the native bush and its inhabitants', of.' my love for our island home, and my desire to see as much of it as is left preserved from destruction.

' New Zealand is' the'remnant of one of the'oldest fragments of this ancient earth of ours; in some shape or other it'was in existence long before man appeared on, the face of the earth,, long before the-mastodon, long, before there was) an animal of any kind, whatever !—and that.is' thousands and hundreds of thousands, and millions of years ago. It was there even before, birds, ap,peared, and birds preceded .animals by thousands . and .perhaps, millions :of years. ; . . . ; . '.- .

How can this-be; known? Partly by geology, :partly by.comparing the forms of life now on New. Zealand-with forms of life on other lands. So different is New Zealand.from every other part of thje. earth that when the earth's surface was divided by naturalists into related areas, they found themselves compelled to consider New Zealand as a. region by itself. It was related to other parts, particularly to Australia, but so distantly that the relationship must' have been away in the dim ages of time, so;dim that it was the age of birds,-and the age of development of flightless birds. ' Before that time New Zealand had developed its wonderful forests and general plant covering isolated and apart from the rest of the earth. ' . ■ '..

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND,

Going on geological and botanical evidence, Alfred Bussell Wallace describes ancient Australia as consisting of two islands—a great western temperate island and. a long narrow eastern island joined to' New Guinea in)the north and extending beyond Tasmania in the south. The western, island was the oWer,"and was 'we'll stocked with varied forest when the eastern island was elevated from the sea, slowly 'receiving its vegetation from the tropical lands of the, north. -Eventually the two islands joined, when a:mingling of their, distinctive vegetatipns began. ; New Zealand was then considerably larger than it is now, an arm of land running north-west, including Norfolk, and Lord Howe Islands, and joined on to the eastern Australian island at its northern or tropical part, so that the vegetation migrating into New Zealand fr6m the' north-west was the tropical or semi-tropical vegetation of North Queensland and New Guinea. This accounts for the fact that the close similarities between the vegetation of Australia and New Zealand"occur in plants peculiar to tropicaland not temperate Australia, such plants including among others the koheriki (Mehcope), maire (Eugenia),.., hangehange (Geniostoma), purin (Vitere), kawakawa .(Piper), kauri, the ponga (Cyathodes), silver tree-fer.n, the ti (Cordyline,), cabbage-tree, the vines or scramblers kohia (Passiflora), | passion-flower; the kiekie (Frcy cine[tia),' and many others less, generally | known than the foregoing, all of which I ar«; peculiar to tropical Australia and thecountries ,to the north, also the beautiful nika^u, most southerly ■of palms... '.. .'. ; '■■■■••.'■,', j Of the peculiar vegetation of the old I western island—what is now Western Australia, New Zealand has practically none; and of .the vegetation of temperate Australia, whilst New Zealand has many 'representatives, they are nearly all plants .whose seeds, floating on a pappus, are: wind-borne, and were no doubt carried' across the area of s,ea separating the'two lands, a sea' then only about two-thirds its present' width. • following, the vegetation, but no doubt many thousands of years later,, the Wingless birds from the tropics pene- ! trated Australia and New Zealand, developing, on. the lands becoining again more or less isolated, into the casso- [ wary in the New Guinea region, the emu in Australia, and the moa and kiwi in New Zealand. ' ' . ■ , .

This is the merest sketch of the theory ably put forwar.d by. Wallace; it accounts for the great similarities yet curious differences in the vegetations in Australia and New Zealand, arid it explains why the vegetation ,of New Zealand is so tropical in appearance. It also suggests an explanation.of the course of the shining cuckoo; that bird in its migration follows the route of the old land-bridge, which once, connected North .Queensland and New Guinea with New Zealand. ! FOREST AND BIRDS. As regards other of the birds, it need only be said that several Australian birds, such aslthe swallow, the ibis, the roller, have occurred in New Zealand, and the silver-eye is almost certainly known to have been blown across from Australia so recently as the year 1856. ' This shows how our' unique forest developed .without interference •of any living creatures but insects and birds; and the fact that at least two-thirds of the, North Island, and great part'of "the South Island, were forested within-the memory of man, shows that the' insects and the birds did it no harm; its vigbur showed that on the contrary they were beneficent.

\ 'To think that our bush is.a modification of the bush, that covered the.islands thousands and millions of. years ago! It is a representative of the oldest forest of the face of the earth, and the •' birds " are almost' coeval with it. How many thousands and thousands of years have the tuis and korimakos sung that 'wonderful pre-dawn- chorus?—and W6' have almost silenced the chorus within a short century, . have almost destroyed the forest that Nature was millions of years vitalising and beautifying with great flowering trees; starry vines, fragrant orchids, inimitable ferns. ...'.. :.. ~ .

Can anyone wonder that I desire to

see the remnants of this primeval beauty preserved? Can they wonder at my admiration for it? In it the young people, may see a sign that beauty never grows.old; never fades; the old people may see that age has its ineffable beauty, a beauty that only increases with the passage of years.'