I 



BY J. J. FLETCHER. 533 



land ; though not less to be desired is an up-to-date knowledge of 

 the faunas of West and South Australia and Tasmania. 



Mr. A. H. S. Lucas has recently revised the batrachian fauna 

 of Victoria (Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict. 1891, iv. (2), p. 59), bringing up 

 the number of species to sixteen, or less than half the number 

 recorded from N. S. Wales. In this paper Mr. Lucas refers to 

 the distinctness of species on the two sides of the Great Dividing 

 Range in Victoria. At present, however, it is not possible to 

 institute any very satisfactory comparison between the faunas of 

 the two colonies because the groups separated by the Divide in 

 one colony do not present any marked features in common with 

 the corresponding groups in the other. Of the sixteen Victorian 

 species five are peculiar, nine are widely distributed Australian or 

 Eastern Australian forms (seven of them in N. S. Wales being 

 common both to the Plains and the Coast), and two occur outside 

 of Victoria but not or only doubtfully in N. S. Wales ; whereas 

 our characteristic species, whether of the Plains {except Heleioporus 

 2?ictuSj which Mr. Lucas records from Parwan, south of the Divide) 

 or of the Coast, are not yet known to extend to Victoria. Addi- 

 tional material which would supply data for the exact determina- 

 tion of the southern limit of certain species in this colony and the 

 northern limit of some of the Victorian species is much to be 

 desired ; as also are collections from the interior of the continent, 

 especially from anywhere outside the drainage area of the great 

 river system of this and the adjoining colonies, and wdiere such 

 creeks or rivers as there are do not directly reach the sea. 



