which have a very different flora and fauna, totally un- 

 like that found in Asia, but very similar to that found 

 in Australia. 



Australia, be it known, is totally different in all of its 

 animal and vegetable phenomena from Asia. 

 In Australia, until the white man very recently carried 

 them across, there were no monkeys, apes, cats, bears, 

 tigers, wolves, elephants, horses, squirrels or rabbit*. 

 Instead there were found animals that are found no- 

 where else, and which seem to belong to a different 

 and so-called extinct geologic age, such as the kanga- 

 roo, wombats, the platypus — which the sailors used 

 to tell us was neither bird nor beast, and yet was both. 

 In birds, Australia has also very strange specimens, 

 such as the ostrich which cannot fly, but can outrun a 

 horse and kills its prey by kicking forward like a man. 

 Australia also has immense mound-making turkeys, 

 honeysuckers, cockatoos, but no woodpeckers, quail 

 or pheasants. 



Wallace was the first to discover that there are vari- 

 ous islands, some of them several hundred miles from 

 Australia, "where the animal life is identical with that 

 of Australia. And then only a comparatively few miles 

 away are islands which have all the varieties of birds 

 and beasts found in Asia. But this line that once sepa- 

 rated continents is in places but fifteen miles wide, 

 and is always marked by a deep-water channel, but 

 the seas that separate Borneo and Sumatra from Asia, 

 although wide, are so shallow that ships can find 

 anchorage anywhere. 



105 



LITTLE 

 JOURNEYS 



