G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 149 



G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 



VERTEBRATES OF AUSTRALIA. 



According to Dr. Krefft, the well-known curator of the 

 Australian Museum at Sydney, the vertebrate fauna of Aus- 

 tralia, recent and fossil, foots up 133 mammals, 670 birds, 150 

 reptiles, 42 batrachians, and 440 fishes, making a total of 

 nearly 1500 species. Of the mammals, 110 are marsupials, 

 and 30 are rodents. Of parrots, 60 species are enumerated, 

 no woodpeckers, humming-birds, or trogons being met with. 

 Reptiles are abundant, embracing one species of crocodile, 

 which often attain a length of 30 feet. Of 80 known species 

 of serpents only 5 are poisonous, and those not so dangerous 

 as the common English viper, and much less so than the 

 American rattlesnake or coj)per-head. 13 A, 1871, July 15, 

 357. 



FAUNAL PECULIARITIES OF THE AZORES. 



Of late years much attention has been directed by natural- 

 ists to the peculiarities of the fauna of islands, and the study 

 of their native animals has tended to throw great light upon 

 the question as to the length of time that must have elapsed 

 since such islands were either lifted up from the bed of the 

 sea or cut off from connection with the main. We have giv- 

 en in previous pages some notices of the fauna of Madeira 

 and its special peculiarities, and in the recent work of Mr. 

 Frederick Godman upon the natural history of the Azores 

 we have a similar problem elaborated. The most striking 

 feature, as developed by Mr. Godman's book, is the great 

 similarity between the productions of the islands and those 

 of Europe, although separated by an interval of a thousand 

 miles and a channel of 15,000 feet in depth. Thus 80 to 90 

 per cent, of the birds, the butterflies, the beetles, and the 

 plants are the same as the European forms, while only 1 or 2 

 per cent, are American. This appears anomalous at first, in 

 view of the fact that the currents of both water and air are 

 from the west a fact which should produce a preponderance 

 of western or American forms. Great Britain, and especially 



