the victorian naturalist. 39 



president's address. 

 The retiring president, Mr. T. S. Hall, M.A., then deUvered an 

 address, taking for his subject, " Whence Came our Australian 

 Animals ?" of which the following is an abstract : — 



One very striking feature of the Club's work is the publica- 

 tion of lists of animals and plants from different districts. We 

 recognize the fact that there are changes in the life of different 

 localities. The inhabitants of the Keilor Plains show a marked 

 contrast to those of Oakleigh or of the valley of the Watts. 

 These differences are due to various factors, an important one 

 being rainfall. However, when we turn our gaze further afield 

 we see differences that cannot be explained by climatic influences. 

 With a similar rainfall and temperature, Western Australia and 

 Victoria yet show many points of divergence in their plant and 

 animal inhabitants. The West has no Platypus and no Native 

 Bear or Lyre-bird in its forests, and no Eel or Blackfish in its 

 streams, while we have no Banded Ant-eater or Tarsipes and no 

 Spotted Emu in the East. 



When we glance at the rest of the world we find in the same 

 way great differences, and we are able to divide the land areas 

 into regions marked by the groups of animals they contain. 

 Australia and its adjacent islands, in its great wealth of Mar- 

 supials, in its Platypus and Echidna, its Honey-eaters, Birds of 

 Paradise, and Mound-builders, as well as in the almost entire 

 absence from it of mammals higher than Marsupials, of Vultures 

 and many other widely-spread birds and animals, differs so 

 markedly from the rest of the world that we might divide the 

 earth into the two regions, Australian and non-Australian. What 

 is true of the fauna is to a certain but much smaller extent true 

 of its flora. 



The success that has attended the efforts of man to transfer 

 animals from one country to another, as in the case of horses, 

 cattle, and sheep, shows us that climatic influences are not the 

 main ones that lead to the differences in distribution, and we are 

 bound to ask why the differences exist. Why, for instance, are 

 there no Kangaroos in Asia ? Why are there Tapirs in Malaysia 

 and in South America, and nowhere else ? Why are there Bears 

 throughout the Northern Hemisphere and none in Southern 

 Africa ? Did Tapirs come into existence twice over? Did those 

 most gorgeous of all birds, the Trogons, spring into existence in 

 tropical America, Africa, and India ? Now, one of the funda- 

 mental truths that modern biology insists on most strongly is 

 that close agreement in structure means relationship — means 

 blood relationship and descent from common ancestors. All 

 the Tapirs and the Trogons sprang from the same stock, and must 

 have migrated from a common centre, and have died out in the 



