BY CAPTAIN F. W. HUTTON. 45 



think that the climatic objection is fatal, for we cannot tell what 

 the climate may have been in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, 

 but it is a difficulty, and I cannot go so far as Mr. Hedley, who 

 supposes that venomous snakes, frogs, monoti'emes and marsupials 

 passed round the head of a deep bight of the Pacific Ocean which 

 "stretched within a few degrees of the pole." 



A far greater difficulty remains for consideration, which is this: 

 Aplacental Mammals — both Multituberculata and Polyproto- 

 dontia — existed in Eui'ope and N. America in the Triassic and 

 Jurassic periods, and these Polyprotodontia were, no doubt, the 

 ancestors of the living Polyprotodontia of Australia. In the 

 Eocene strata of Patagonia remains of a large number of Poly- 

 protodontia have been found which are far more closely related 

 to the Polyprotodontia of Australia than to the Mesosoic forms of 

 Europe and N. America; consequently a direct land communica- 

 tion must have existed between these two southern countries. 

 Now there is strong geological and pala^ontological evidence that 

 no land I'idge existed between N. and S. America during the 

 Mesozoic and early Cainozoic eras; consequently we must assume 

 that the southern forms migrated through the Malay Archipelago; 

 and, if they went to Patagonia by means of an Antarctic conti- 

 nent, they must have passed through Australia. But mingled 

 with the Eocene marsupials of Patagonia there are a number of 

 Eutheria of typically South American character — Edentata, Toxo- 

 doiilia, TypotJieria, Perissodactyla, Rodeyitia, and even Platyrrhine 

 monkeys — without any northern forms of Artiodactyla, Carnivoya, 

 or Insec.tivora; and it is hardly possible that these should have 

 passed through Australia without leaving any record behind. 

 This is, to me, a fatal objection to the theory of migration by 

 means of an Antarctic continent. 



3. The theory of the former existence of a South Pacific 

 Mesozoic continent seems to be the onl}^ theory left; but it has 

 been objected to both on account of the present depth of the 

 ocean and because, it is said, no record has been left in the 

 Polynesian Islands of the supposed passage of the plants and 

 animals. Both these objections apply eciuall}^ to the former 



