A NEW GENUS OF ENGYSTOMATID.E — FRY. 95- 



the Torresian Sub-region. At the time of this connection with 

 Papua the group Engystomatidse was probably less specialised 

 and poorer in species than it is at present, thus accounting for 

 the transmission of a few members only. It is true that our 

 knowledge of this group of vertebrates is not complete, and that 

 the rich eastern slopes of Cape York Peninsula are practically 

 unexplored by biologists. But I think enough material has come 

 to light to allow us to definitely draw conclusions as to the 

 relative abundance of the families of Australian frogs. It is 

 possible that other members of this family will be found in 

 Australia, but we can neither expect the diversity of forms or 

 the abundance of species found in Papua. The genus described, 

 as would be expected, is closely allied to a genus (Ghaperina) 

 which, because of its comparative abundance of species and its 

 wide distribution, is to be regarded as of the older and more 

 primitive stock. Thus the genus Ghaperina and a closely allied 

 form, which might have only become differentiated after its 

 disconnection with its original habitat, has a distribution ranging 

 from Borneo, through New Guinea, to North Australia. The 

 sternal apparatus has affinities to a primitive stock. This is 

 speaking comparatively, comparing Ghaperina with other 

 members of the Engystomatidse only, for the whole of this family 

 is to be regarded as highly specialised. To quote Dr. Hans 

 Gadow on this point — " On the whole, those genera are to be 

 considered the most primitive which have undergone the fewest 

 losses. Those with a complete shoulder girdle, with an omo and 



meta-sternuro are necessarily the older forms." Thisimplies 



that such forms as Phrynella, Mantophryne, Cacopus, etc., in 

 which the precoracoids and clavicles are much modified or absent, 

 are to be regarded as the most highly specialised. 



The Ranidaa, which are also Oriental migrants have become 

 greatly diversified in the Papuan and Melanesian Sub-regions. 

 As far as numbers go this family is not exceptionally abundant, 

 the whole region, Papua and Melanesia, being represented by 

 twenty-one species confined to four genera. 



Professor W. Baldwin Spencer 6 suggests that the Hylidse have 

 entered Australia like the Ranida? from the north. The author 

 would propose that Papuasia and Melanesia have themselves 

 been supplied by Hylidoe, with Australia as the centre of 

 dispersion, and who in turn derived her original stock from South 

 America, via the supposed Antarctic continent of early Tertiary 

 times. That there has been a certain amount of interchange of 



6 Spencer — Rept. Horn. Sei. Exp., Summary, i., 1896, p. 192. 



