BY J. J. FLETCHER. 11 



slieep here and there, kangaroos, emus, plain turkeys, bronze- 

 winged pigeons, . . . various kinds of ducks and other game. 



. . . The country is indented here and there with shallow- 

 depressions in the earth, which are filled with water after the 

 rains, and sometimes form chains of ponds across the country." 



At Emu Plains, some eighteen miles from the Murrum'oidgee, 

 Mr. Sloane has been good enough to collect for me ; in this locality 

 there are swamps, but they dry up every year about December, 

 or exceptionally a month or two later ; in fact there is no perma- 

 nent water except in the station dams ; nevertheless frogs are not 

 scarce ; and though my friend is a busy man, and natural history 

 tastes in quite another direction occupy his leisure, yet just about 

 the homestead he has been able to collect seven species — only one 

 less than the number at present recorded from Tasmania (Hyla 

 verreauxii not being regarded as a distinct species). Here, as 

 elsewhere, provided only that the frogs can live out the more or 

 less lengthy perinds of aestivation, in some years more trying than 

 in others, the ponds after rain, wherever the soil is not too sandy, 

 are at times sufficiently permanent and sufficiently numerous, 

 forming chains of ponds across the country as quoted above, to 

 affiDrd a means whereby batrachians may be enabled to migrate 

 from places where they have become established, and so to gain 

 new stations ; or to re-people the old haunts should excessively 

 dry seasons prove utterly disastrous. The possibility of spawn 

 being carried to distant localities on the feet of aquatic birds need 

 not be left out of consideration ; but I imagine the means of 

 dispersal mentioned to be of prime importance, and that the great 

 river-system of the interior of the colony is the main source of 

 distribution and replenishment. 



Secondly, whenever anything at all like a fairly characteristic 

 collection is obtained, it will be found to comprise representatives 

 ■of all three dominant Australian families. This is exemplified 

 over and over again in the larger collections recorded. 



Out of about fiity-four known Australian species New South 

 Wales may be credited with about thirty -four, of which four 

 [Uyla jervisensis, II . dimolops, 11. nasuta, and Hylella bicolor\ 



