12 president's address. 



unknown in Europe after the Jurassic period, Lydekker 

 assumes that during it, or sometime afterwards, they reached 

 Australia, where they have ever since been completely cut off 

 from all the rest of the old world. Being free from the compe- 

 tition of the higher types, they have flourished and developed to 

 an extent which would otherwise have been impossible. One or 

 two of the kangaroos, now found only in a fossil state, attained 

 gigantic dimensions, and the Diprotodo?i must have been fully 

 as large as the largest Rhinoceros. 



Although the Emu is not unrepresented elsewhere, being 

 related to the ostrich of Africa, and more closely to the lately 

 extinct Dinornis of New Zealand, and also to the Rhea of 

 America, it and the rarer Cassowary may be considered survivors 

 of a perishing race, 



Gould remarks that Australia comprises peculiarities unex- 

 ampled in any other portion of the globe; that she possesses 

 almost exclusively the Marsupialia and Movotremata, and many 

 singular forms of birds especially adapted to find their existence 

 among her very remarkable flora and equally remarkable insects. 



Many years ago some strange fossils were discovered in the 

 European rocks of the Secondary period, where they seemed to 

 lie extremely abundant. These consisted of the jaws of a fish, 

 completely paved with teeth, which greatly puzzled palaeontologists 

 until a Hsh, with exactly the same jaws and teeth, was discovered 

 alive in Port Jackson, and was named " Cestracion Phillipi." It 

 has now also been recorded in a few other places. 



Some other remarkable teeth having been found in Triassic 

 rocks in England, the fish to which they belonged was called l>y 

 Agassiz " Ueratodus" and was naturally supposed to be quite 

 extinct, but, to the great astonishment of naturalists, it was 

 afterwards found living in a few Queensland rivers. It has been 

 found nowhere else. It is remarkable on account of its breathing 

 by both lungs and gills. 



Another fish originally known only by its remains in Cretaceous 

 and early Tertiary rocks, and characterised by having a row of 



