president's address. 659 



attended by dry weather; its circuit took in West Australia, and 

 its single naturalist had to divide his attention between botany 

 and zoology. 



There was, therefore, ample scope for a well-organised attempt 

 to throw more light on the natural histor}^ of this remarkable 

 tract of Australia. At the Adelaide Meeting of the Australasian 

 Association, Prof. Tate, in his Presidential Address, expressed 

 the earnest hope that " a systematic exploration of some well- 

 known area, such as the MacDonnell Ranges," might become 

 possible on the part of a well-known South Australian patron of 

 exf)loration " as a crowning effort to unfold some of the mysteries 

 of our dry interior." Not quite in the way Professor Tate had in 

 his mind, but for practical purposes in an equally satisfactory 

 way, through the liberality of Mr. Horn, the attempt was shortly 

 afterwards made. And with what conspicuous success we may 

 judge from the first instalment of the Report of the Expedition — 

 Part ii. Zoology (4to. pp. 1-431, with 22 plates), edited by Professor 

 Baldwin Spencer, recently issued. To this important work some 

 little attention may worthily be devoted. 



Leaving out of consideration the Hymenoptera (other than the 

 Honey Ants) and the Hemiptera, the returns for which are not 

 completed, we find that the Horn Expedition has added some 164 

 new species (Vertebrates 30, Invertebrates 134) to the general 

 fauna of Australia. Taking all things into consideration this is 

 a very substantial gain. Central Australia is not a region which 

 could be expected to yield a A^aried fauna very rich in species. 

 Some groups, well represented in other parts of Australia, but 

 requiring a more or less humid environment, seem here to be 

 wholly w^anting, or but feebly represented. 



As a contribution to the fauna of a particular circumscribed 

 area of the Continent — the central portion of the Eremian Region, 

 Larapintine Region as Prof. Tate now proposes to call it — 

 the results are even more im^Dortant. Again, leaving out of 

 consideration the Hymenoptera (other than the Honey Ants) and 

 the Hemiptera, we find a total of between five aud six hundred 

 species (Vertebrates 177, Invertebrates 358) assigned to it. This 



