MARSUPIAL QUADRUPEDS OF NEW HOLLAND. 138 



tered over that long chain of islands which forms an almost 

 uninterrupted communication between the northern shores of 

 Australia and the continent of India, these animals possess 

 no organic type among the quadrupeds of the Old World; 

 and those, on the other hand, have but few representatives 

 within the boundaries of New Holland and its dependencies. 

 What inferences, then, are we to deduce from these singular 

 facts ? Do this vast continent, and the strange and ane- 

 malous productions which it nourishes, really owe their ex- 

 istence to the operation of peculiar causes ? Are they the 

 result of a subsequent act of creation ? Or, are we to regard 

 them merely as modifications of the same general plan ? Is 

 their existence, abstractedly considered, independent of the 

 climate and soil which they inhabit ? Or must we ascribe 

 their peculiar and anomalous organization to the influence of 

 local circumstances ? These are inquiries which we have no 

 means of answering satisfactorily. The little which we know 

 of its Geology, however, warrants us in concluding that Aus- 

 tralia, like other parts of our globe, has had its changes and 

 revolutions ; the osseous caves and breccia of Wellington 

 Valley, lately described by Mr. Clift, contain fragments of 

 the bones of mammiferous animals in as great perfection and 

 abundance as those of Germany, Yorkshire, and Gibraltar. — 

 These remains, sufficiently important in other respects, ac- 

 quaint us with the singular and interesting fact, that, even at 

 that early period, before the operation of those causes which 

 swept them off from the surface of the earth, the mammals of 

 Australia were, generally speaking, of the marsupial order, a 

 tribe, of which, I believe, only a single undoubted species has 

 been hitherto discovered among the fossil remains of the Old 

 World. 



Another remarkable circumstance, connected with this sin- 

 gular tribe of animals, is the very limited number of species 

 which have been hitherto discovered, considering the vast ex- 

 tent of the continent over which they are dispersed, and the 

 consequent variety of soil and climate to which they are ex- 

 posed. At the present moment indeed there are not more 

 than thirty distinct species of Australian marsupials enume- 

 rated as authentic, in the most correct and extensive cata- 

 logues of Zoology. To these nearly half that number of new 

 species will be added, and described for the first time, in the 

 present paper ; but, even with this addition, our knowledge 

 of Australian mammals will still remain extremely limited 

 and imperfect. Nor are the genera of these animals, as far at 

 least as we are at present acquainted with them, compara- 

 tively more numerous than the species : on the contrary, all 

 the marsupials hitherto discovered upon the continent of Aus- 



Vol. III.— No. 27. n. s. p 



