Physical geography. By Mary Somerville ...

446 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. CHAP. XXXIL.
The ostrich family live on vegetables; the form of those that had
their home in New Zealand would lead to the conclusion that they
had fed on the roots of the edible fern which abounds in that country; and as no quadruped excepting a rat is indigenous in New Zealand, though 700 miles long, and in many places 90 wide, these
birds could have had no enemy but man, the most formidable of all.
The beautiful and sprightly Tui, or parson-bird, native in New
Zealand, is jet black with a white tuft on its breast, and so imita-,tive that it can be taught to repeat whole sentences. There are
parrots and paroquets, vast numbers of pigeons, fine warblers, many
small birds, and a great variety of water-fowl, amongst others a cormorant, which, though web-footed, perches on the trees that overhang the streams and sea, watching for fish; and a snow-white
frigate-bird, that pounces on them from a great height in the air.
Altogether there are at least 84 species of birds that inhabit these
islands.'
CHAPTER XXXII.
Distribution of Marmmalia.
CARBONIC acid, water, and ammonia contain the elements necessary for the support of animals, as well as of vegetables. They are
supplied to the herbivora in the vegetable food, which is converted
into animal matter by their vital functions.
Vitality in animals, as in vegetables, is the power they have of
assimilating their food, a process independent of volition, since it is
bonaceous epoch is perfectly similar to that of New Zealand, where ferns
and club-mosses are so abundant; and the fauna of that ancient period had
been representative of that which recently prevailed in these islands, since
foot-prints of colossal birds have been discovered in the red sandstone of
Connecticut.
The age of reptiles of the Wealden and other secondary periods is representative of the fauna of the Galapagos islands, which chiefly consists
of tortoises and creatures of the lizard or crocodile family; and the cycadaceous plants and marsupial animals of the oolite are representative of
the flora and fauna of Australia.
The colossal birds which prevailed in New Zealand, almost to the entire
exclusion of reptiles and quadrnpeds, lasted to a very late period.
[' The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, contains the most
extensive and most beautiful collection of birds in the world. It consists
of more than 27,000 specimens, of which upwards of 22,000 specimens are
mounted and exhibited. A representative of almost every species of birds
known in the world may be seen there.]