FAUNA AND  FLORA] highlands . In summer the sun has great power, and the temperature reaches oo° in the shade, with hot winds blowing from the interior . The weather on the whole is remarkably dry . At Adelaide there are on an average 120 rainy days per annum, with a mean rainfall of 2o•88 in . The country is naturally very healthful, as evidence of which may be mentioned that no great epidemic has ever visited the state . Western Australia has practically only two seasons, the winter or wet season, which commences in April and ends in October, and Western the summer or dry season, which comprises the remainder Australia. of the year . During the wet season frequent and heavy rains fall, and thunderstorms, with sharp showers, occur in the summer, especially on the north-west coast, which is some-times visited by hurricanes of great violence . In the southern and early-settled parts of the state the mean temperature is about 64°, but in the more northern portions the heat is excessive, though the dryness of the atmosphere makes it preferable to moist tropical climates . The average rainfall at Perth is 33 in. per annum . The climate of the Northern Territory is extremely hot, except on the elevated tablelands; altogether, the temperature of this part of the continent is very similar to that of northern Queensland, and the climate is not favourable to Europeans . The rainfall in the extreme north, especially in January and February, is very heavy, and the annual average along the coast is about 63 in . The whole of the peninsula north of 15° S. has a rainfall considerably exceeding 4o in .

This region is backed by a

belt of about loo m. wide, in which the rainfall is from 30 to 40 in., from which inwards the rainfall gradually declines until between Central Mount Stuart and Macdonnell ranges it falls to between 5 and to in . Fauna and Flora.—The origin of the fauna and flora of Australia has attracted considerable attention . Much accumulated evidence, biological and geological, has pointed to a southern extension of India, an eastern extension of South Africa, and a western extension of Australia into the Indian Ocean . The comparative richness of proteaceous plants in Western Australia and South Africa first suggested a common source for these primitive types . Dr H . O . Forbes drew attention to a certain community amongst birds and other vertebrates, invertebrates, and amongst plants, on all the lands stretching towards the south pole . A theory 'was therefore propounded that these known types were all derived from a continent which has been named Antarctica . The supposed continent extended across the south pole, practically joining Australia and South America . Just as we have evidence of a former mild climate in the arctic regions, so a similar mild climate has been postulated for Antarctica . Modern naturalists consider that many of the problems of Australia's remarkable fauna and flora can be best explained by the following hypothesis:—The region now covered by the antarctic ice-cap was in early Tertiary times favoured by a mild climate; here lay an antarctic continent or archipelago . From an area corresponding to what is now South America there entered a fauna and flora, which, after undergoing modification, passed by way of Tasmania to Australia .

These immigrants then

developed, with some exceptions, into the present Australian flora and fauna . This theory has advanced from the position of a disparaged heresy to acceptance by leading thinkers . The discovery as fossil, in South America, of primitive or ancestral forms of marsupials has given it much support . One of these, Prothylacinus, is regarded as the forerunner of the marsupial wolf of Tasmania . An interesting link between divergent marsupial families, still living in Ecuador, the Coenolestes, is another discovery of recent years . On the Australian side the fact that Tasmania is richest in marsupial types indicates the gate by which they entered . It is not to be supposed that this antarctic element, to which Professor Tate has applied the name Euronotian, entered a desert barren of all life . Previous to its arrival Australia doubtless possessed considerable vegetation and a scanty fauna, chiefly invertebrate . At a comparatively recent date Australia received its third and newest constituent . The islands of Torres Strait have been shown to be the denuded remnant of a former extension of Cape York peninsula in North Queensland . Previous to the existence of the strait, and across its site, there poured into Australia a wealth of Papuan forms . Along the Pacific slope of the Queensland Cordillera these found in soil and climate a congenial home .

Among the plants the

wild banana, pepper, orange and mangosteen, rhododendron, epiphytic orchids and the palm; among mammals the bats and947 rats; among birds the cassowary and rifle birds; and among reptiles the crocodile and tree snakes, characterize this element . The numerous facts, geological, geographical and biological, which when linked together lend great support to this theory, have been well worked out in Australia by Mr Charles Hedley of the Australian Museum, Sydney . The zoology of Australia and Tasmania presents a very conspicuous point of difference from that of other regions of the globe, in the prevalence of non-placental mammalia . The vast Fauna. majority of the mammalia are provided with an organ in the uterus, by which, before the birth of their young, a vascular connexion is maintained between the embryo and the parent animal . There are two orders, the Marsupialia and the Monotremata, which do not possess this organ; both these are found in Australia, to which region indeed they are not absolutely confined . The geographical limits of the marsupials are very interesting . The opossums of America are marsupials, though not showing anomalies as great as kangaroos and bandicoots (in their feet), and Myrmecobius (in the number of teeth) . Except the opossums, no single living marsupial is known outside the Australian zoological region . The forms of life characteristic of India and the Malay peninsula come down to the island of Bali . Bali is separated from Lombok by a strait not more than 15 M. wide . Yet this narrow belt of water is the boundary line between the Australasian and the Indian regions . The zoological boundary passing through the Bali Strait is called " Wallace's line," after the eminent naturalist who was its discoverer .

He showed that not only as regards beasts, but also as regards birds, these regions are thus sharply limited . Australia, he pointed out, has no woodpeckers and no pheasants, which are widely-spread Indian birds . Instead of these it has

mound-making turkeys, honey-suckers, cockatoos and brush-tongued lories, all of which are found nowhere else in the world . The marsupials constitute two-thirds of all the Australian species of mammals . It is the well-known peculiarity of this order that the female has a pouch or fold of skin upon her abdomen, in which she can place the young for suckling within reach of her teats . The opossum of America is the only species out of Australasia which is thus provided . Australia is inhabited by at least 1 Io different species of marsupials, which is about two-thirds of the known species; these have been arranged in five tribes, according to the food they eat, viz., the grass-eaters (kangaroos), the root-eaters (wombats), the insect-eaters (bandicoots), the flesh-eaters (native cats and rats), and the fruit-eaters (phalangers) . The kangaroo (Macropus) lives in droves in the open grassy plains . Several smaller forms of the same general appearance are known as wallabies, and are common everywhere . The kangaroo and most of its congeners show an extraordinary disproportion of the hind limbs to the fore part of the body . The rock wallabies again have short tarsi of the hind legs, with a long pliable tail for climbing, like that of the tree kangaroo of New Guinea, or that of the jerboa . Of the larger kangaroos, which attain a weight of 200 lb and more, eight species are named, only one of which is found in Western Australia .

Fossil bones of

extinct kangaroo species are met with; these kangaroos must have been of enormous size, twice or thrice that of any species now living . There are some twenty smaller species in Australia and Tasmania, besides the rock wallabies and the hare kangaroos; these last are wonderfully swift, making clear jumps 8 or to ft. high . Other terrestrial marsupials are the wombat (Phascolomys), a large, clumsy, burrowing animal, not unlike a pig, which attains a weight of from 6o to too lb; the bandicoot (Perameles), a rat-like creature whose depredations annoy the agriculturist; the native cat (Dasxurus), noted robber of the poultry yard; the Tasmanian wolf (Thylacinus), which preys on large game; and the recently discovered Notoryctes, a small animal which burrows like a mole in the desert of the interior . Arboreal species include the well-known opossums (Phalanger) ; the extraordinary tree-kangaroo of the Queensland tropics; the flying squirrel, which expands a membrane between the legs and arms, and by its aid makes long sailing jumps from tree to tree; and the native bear (Phascolarctos), an animal with no affinities to the bear, and having a long soft fur and no tail . The Myrmecobius of Western Australia is a bushy-tailed ant-eater about the size of a squirrel, and from its lineage and structure of more than passing interest . It is, Mivart remarks, a survival of a very ancient state of things . It had ancestors in a flourishing condition during the Secondary epoch . Its congeners even then lived in England, as is proved by the fact that their relics have been found in the Stonesfield oolitic rocks, the deposition of which is separated from that which gave rise to the Paris Tertiary strata by an abyss of past time which we cannot venture to express even in thousands of years . We pass on to the other curious order of non-placental mammals,' that of the Monotremata, so called from the structure of their organs of evacuation with a single orifice, as in birds . Their abdominal bones are like those of the marsupials; and they are furnished with pouches for their young, but have no teats, the milk being distilled into their pouches from the mammary glands . Australia and Tasmania possess two animals of this order—the echidna, or spiny 948 ant-eater (hairy in Tasmania), and the Platypus anatinus, the duck-billed water mole, otherwise named the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus . This odd animal is provided with a bill or beak, which is not, like that of a bird, affixed to the skeleton, but is merely attached to the skin and muscles .

Australia has no apes, monkeys or baboons, and no ruminant beasts . The comparatively few indigenous placental mammals, besides the

dingo or wild dog—which, however, may have come from the islands north of this continent—are of the bat tribe and of the rodent or rat tribe . There are four species of large fruit-eating bats, called flying foxes, twenty of insect-eating bats, above twenty of land-rats, and five of water-rats . The sea produces three different seals, which often ascend rivers from the coast, and can live in lagoons of fresh water; many cetaceans, besides the " right whale " and sperm whale; and the dugong, found on the northern shores, which yields a valuable medicinal oil . The birds of Australia in their number and variety of species may be deemed some compensation for its poverty of mammals; yet it will not stand comparison in this respect with regions of Africa and South America in the same latitudes . The black swan was thought remarkable when discovered, as belying an old Latin proverb . There is also a white eagle . The vulture is wanting . Sixty species of parrots, some of them very handsome, are found in Australia The emu corresponds with the African and Arabian ostrich, the rhea of South America, and the cassowary of the Moluccas and New Guinea . In New Zealand this group is represented by the apteryx, as it formerly was by the gigantic moa, the remains of which have been found likewise in Queensland . The graceful Menura superba, or lyre-bird, with its tail feathers spread in the shape of a lyre, is a very characteristic form . The mound-raising megapodes, the bower-building satin-birds, and several others, display peculiar habits .

The honey-eaters present a great diversity of plumage . There are also many kinds of game birds, pigeons, ducks, geese, plovers and quails . The

ornithology of New South Wales and Queensland is more varied and interesting than that of the other provinces . As for reptiles, Australia has a few tortoises, all of one family, and not of great size . The " leathery turtle," which is herbivorous, and yields abundance of oil, has been caught at sea off the Illawarra coast so large as 9 ft. in length . The saurians or lizards are numerous, chiefly on dry sandy or rocky ground in the tropical region . The great crocodile of Queensland has been known to attain a length of 30 ft.; there is a smaller one about 6 ft. in length to be met with in the shallow lagoons of the interior of the Northern Territory . Lizards occur in great profusion and variety . The monitor, or fork-tongued lizard, which burrows in the earth, climbs and swims, is said to grow to a length of 8 to 9 ft . This species and many others do not extend to Tasmania . The monitor is popularly known as the goanna, a name derived from the iguana, an entirely different animal . There are about twenty kinds of night-lizards, and many which hibernate .

One species can utter a cry when pained or alarmed, and the tall-

standing frilled lizard can lift its forelegs, and squat or hop like a kangaroo . There is also the Moloch horridus of South and Western Australia, covered with tubercles bearing large spines, which give it a very strange aspect . This and some other lizards have power to change their colour, not only from light to dark, but over some portions of their bodies, from yellow to grey or red . Frogs of many kinds are plentiful, the brilliant green frogs being especially conspicuous and noisy . Australia is rich in snakes, and has more than a hundred different kinds . Most of these are venomous, but all are not equally dreaded . Five rather common species are certainly deadly—the death adder, the brown, the black, the superb and the tiger snakes . During the colder months these reptiles remain in a torpid state . No certain cure has been or is likely to be discovered for their poison, but in less serious cases strychnine has been used with advantage . In tropical waters a sea snake is found, which, though' very poisonous, rarely bites . Among the inoffensive species are counted the graceful green " tree snake," which pursues frogs, birds and lizards to the topmost branches of the forest; also several species of pythons, the commonest of which is known as the carpet snake . These great reptiles may attain a length of to ft.; they feed on small animals which they crush to death in their folds .

The Australian seas are inhabited by many fishes of the same genera as exist in the southern parts of

Asia and Africa . Of those peculiar to Australian waters may be mentioned the arripis, represented by what is called among the colonists a salmon trout . A very fine fresh-water fish is the Murray cod, which sometimes weighs too lb; and the golden perch, found in the same river, has rare beauty of colour . Among the sea fish, the schnapper is of great value as an article of food, and its weight comes up to 50 lb . This is the Pagrus unicolor, of the family of Sparidae, which includes also the bream . Its colours are beautiful, pink and red with a silvery gloss; but the male as it grows old takes on a singular deformity of the head, with a swelling in the shape of a monstrous human-like nose . These fish frequent rocky shoals off the eastern coast and are caught in numbers outside Port Jackson for the Sydney market . Two species of mackerel, differing some-what from the European species, are also caught on the coasts . The so-called red garnet, a pretty fish, with hues of carmineand blue stripes on its head, is much esteemed for the table . The Trigla[FAUNA AND FLORA polyommata, or flying garnet, is a greater beauty, with its body of crimson and silver, and its large pectoral fins, spread like wings, of a rich green, bordered with purple, and relieved by a black and white spot . Whiting, mullet, gar-fish, rock cod and many others known by local names, are in the lists of edible fishes belonging to New South Wales and Victoria . Oysters abound on the eastern coast, and on the shelving banks of a vast extent of the northern coast the pearl oyster is the source of a considerable industry .

Two existing fishes may be mentioned as ranking in interest with the Myrmecobius (ant-eater) in the eyes of the naturalist . These are the Ceratodus Forsteri and the Port Jackson

shark . The " mud-fish " of Queensland (Ceratodus Forsteri) belongs to an ancient order of fishes—the Dipnoi, only a few species of which have survived from past geological periods . The Dipnoi show a distinct transition between fishes and amphibia . So far the mud-fish has been found only in the Mary and the Burnett rivers . Hardly of less scientific interest is the Port Jackson shark (Heterodonius) . It is a harmless helmeted ground-shark, living on molluscs, and almost the sole survivor of a genus abundant in the Secondary rocks of Europe . The eastern parts of Australia are very much richer both in their botany and in their zoology than any of the other parts . This is due in part to the different physical conditions there prevail- Flora. ing and in part to the invasion of the north-eastern portion of the continent by a number of plants characteristically Melanesian . This element was introduced via Torres Strait, and spread down the Queensland coast to portions of the New South Wales littoral, and also round the Gulf of Carpentaria, but has never been able to obtain a hold in the more arid interior . It has so completely obliterated the original flora, that a Queensland coast jungle is almost an exact replication of what may be seen on the opposite shores of the straits, in New Guinea . This wealth of plant life is confined to the littoral and the coastal valleys, but the central valleys and the plateaux have, if not a varied flora, a considerable wealth of timber trees in every way superior to the flora inland in the same latitudes .

In the interior there is little change in the general aspect of the vegetation, from the Australian

Bight to the region of Carpentaria, where the exotic element begins . Behind the luxuriant jungles of the sub-tropical coast, once over the main range, we find the purely Australian flora with its apparent sameness and sombre dulness . Physical surroundings rather than latitude deter-mine the character of the flora . The contour lines showing the heights above sea-level are the directions along which species spread to form zones . Putting aside the exotic vegetation of the north and east coast-line, the Australian bush gains its peculiar character from the prevalence of the so-called gum-trees (Eucalyptus) and the acacias, of which last there are 300 species, but the eucalypts above all are everywhere . Dwarfed eucalypts fringe the tree-limit on Mount Kosciusco, and the soakages in the parched interior are indicated by a line of the same trees, stunted and straggling . Over the vast continent from Wilson's Promontory to Cape York, north, south, east and west—where anything can grow—there will be found a gum-tree . The eucalypts are remarkable for the oil secreted in their leaves, and the large quantity of astringent resin of their bark . This resinous exudation (Kino) somewhat resembles gum, hence the name " gum " tree . It will not dissolve in water as gums do, but it is soluble in alcohol, as resin usually is . Many of the gum-trees throw off their bark, so that it hangs in long dry strips from the trunk and branches, a feature familiar in " bush " pictures . The bark, resin and " oils " of the eucalyptus are well known as commercial products .

As early as 1866, tannic

acid, gallic acid, wood spirit, acetic acid, essential oil and eucalyptol were produced from various species of eucalyptus, and researches made by Australian chemists, notably by Messrs . Baker and Smith of the Sydney Technical College, have brought to light many other valuable pro-ducts likely to prove of commercial value . The genus Eucalyptus numbers more than 15o species, and provides some of the most durable timbers known . The iron-bark of the eastern coast uplands is well known (Eucalyptus sideroxylon), and is so called from the hardness of the wood, the bark not being remarkable except for its rugged and blackened aspect . Samples of this timber 'have been studied after forty-three years' immersion in sea-water . Portions most liable to destruction, those parts between the tide marks, were found perfectly sound, and showed no signs of the ravages of marine organisms . Other valuable timber trees of the eastern portion of the continent are the blackbutt, tallow-wood, spotted gum, red gum, mahogany, and blue gum, eucalyptus; and the turpentine (Syncarpia laurifolia), which has proved to be more resistant to the attacks of teredo than any other timber and is largely used in wharf construction in infested waters . There are also several extremely valuable soft timbers, the principal being red cedar (Cedrela Toona), silky oak (Grevillea robusta), beech and a variety of teak, with several important species of pine . The red gum forests of the Murray valley and the pine forests bordering the Great Plains are important and valuable . In Western Australia there are extensive forests of hardwood, principally jarrah (Eucalyptus marginate), a very durable timber; 14,000 sq. in. of country are covered with this species . Jarrah timber is nearly impervious to the attacks of the teredo, and there is good evidence to show that, exposed to wear and weather, or placed under the soil, or used as submarine piles, the wood remained POPULATION] intact after nearly fifty years' trial . The following figures show the high density of Australian timber: Australian Specific timber. gravity .

Jarrah . I.12 Grey iron-bark . 1.18 Red iron-bark . . I.22 Forest oak . I.2I Tallow wood . 1.23 Mahogany . 120 Grey gum . '917 Red gum . • '995 European Specific timber. gravity . Ash . '753 Beech . •690

Chestnut .

'535

British oak '99 The resistance to breaking or rupture of Australian timber is very high; grey iron-bark with a specific gravity of 1.18 has a modulus of rupture of 17,900 lb per sq. in. compared with I1,800 lb for British oak with a specific gravity of •69 to •99 . No Australian timber in the foregoing list has a less modulus than 13,100 lb per sq. in . Various " scrubs " characterize the interior, differing very widely from the coastal scrubs . " Mallee " scrub occupies large tracts of South Australia and Victoria, covering probably an extent of 16,000 sq. m . The mallee is a species of eucalyptus growing 12 to 14 ft. high . The tree breaks into thin stems close to the ground, and these branch again and again, the leaves being developed umbrella-fashion on the outer branches . The mallee scrub appears like a forest of dried osier, growing so close that it is not always easy to ride through it . Hardly a leaf is visible to the height of one's head; but above, a crown of thick leather-like leaves shuts out the sunlight . The ground below is perfectly bare, and there is no water . Nothing could add to the sterility and the monotony of these mallee scrubs . Mulga " scrub is a somewhat similar thicket, covering large areas . The tree in this instance is one of the acacias, a genus distributed through all parts of the continent .

Some species have rather elegant blossoms, known to the settlers as " wattle." They serve admirably to break the sombre and monotonous aspect of the Australian vegetation . Two species of

acacia are remarkable for the delicate and violet-like perfume of their wood—myall and yarran . The majority of the species of Acacia are edible and serve as reserve fodder for sheep and cattle . In the alluvial portions of the interior salsolaceous plants—saltbush, bluebush, cottonbush—are invaluable to the pastoralist, and to their presence the pre-eminence of Australia as a wool-producing country is largely due . Grasses and herbage in great variety constitute the most valuable element of Australian flora from the commercial point of view . The herbage for the most part grows with marvellous rapidity after a spring or autumn shower and forms a natural shelter for the more stable growth of nutritious grasses . Under the system of grazing practised throughout Australia it is customary to allow sheep, cattle and horses to run at large all the year round within enormous enclosures and to depend entirely upon the natural growth of grass for their subsistence . Proteaceous plants, although not exclusively Australian, are exceedingly characteristic of Australian scenery, and are counted amongst the oldest flowering plants of the world . The order is easily distinguished by the hard, dry, woody texture of the leaves and the dehiscent fruits . They are found in New Zealand and also in New Caledonia, their greatest developments being on the south-west of the Australian continent . Proteaceae are found also in Tierra del Fuego and Chile . They are also abundant in South Africa, where the order forms the most conspicuous feature of vegetation .

The range in species is very limited, no one being common to eastern and western Australia . The

chief genera are banksia (honeysuckle), and hakea (needle bush) . The Moreton Bay pine (Araucaria Cunninghamii) is reckoned amongst the giants of the forest . The genus is associated with one long extinct in Europe . Moreton Bay pine is chiefly known by the utility of its wood . Another species, A . Bidwillii, or the bunyabunya, afforded food in its nut-like seeds to the aborigines . A most remarkable form of vegetation in the north-west is the gouty-stemmed tree (Adansonia Gregorii), one of the Malvaceae . It is related closely to the famous baobab of tropical Africa . The " grass-tree " (Xanthorrhoea), of the uplands and coast regions, is peculiarly Australian in its aspect . It is seen as a clump of wire-like leaves, a few feet in diameter, surrounding a stem, hardly thicker than a walking-stick, rising to a height of to or 12 ft . This terminates in a long spike thickly studded with white blossoms .

The grass-tree gives as distinct a character to an Australian picture as the

agave and cactus do to the Mexican landscape . With these might be associated the gigantic lily of Queensland (Nymphaea gigantea), the leaves of which float on water, and are quite 18 in. across . There is also a gigantic lily (Doryanthes excelsa) which grows to a height of 15 feet . The " flame tree is a most conspicuous feature of an Illawarra landscape, the largest racemes of crimson red suggesting the name . The949 waratah or native tulip, the magnificent flowering head of which, with the kangaroo, is symbolic of the country, is one of the Proteaceae . The natives were accustomed to suck its tubular flowers for the honey they contained . The " nardoo " seed, on which the aborigines sometimes contrived to exist, is a creeping plant, growing plentifully in swamps and shallow pools, and belongs to the natural order of Marsileaceae . The spore-cases remain after the plant is dried up and withered . These are collected by the natives, and are known over most of the continent as nardoo . No speculation of hypothesis has been propounded to account satisfactorily for the origin of the Australian flora . As a step towards such hypothesis it has been noted that the Antarctic, the South African, and the Australian floras have many types in common . There is also to a limited extent a European element present .

One thing is certain, that there is in Australia a flora that is a remnant of a vegetation once widely distributed . Heer has described such Australian genera as Banksia, Eucalyptus, Grevillea and Hakea from the

Miocene of Switzerland . Another point agreed upon is that the Australian flora is one of vast antiquity . There are genera so far removed from every living genus that many connecting links must have become extinct . The region extending round the south-western extremity of the continent has a peculiarly characteristic assemblage of typical Australian forms, notably a great abundance of the Proteaceae . This flora, isolated by arid country from the rest of the continent, has evidently derived its plant life from an outside source, probably from lands no longer existing .