158 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



ELECTION OF MEMBER. 



On a ballot being taken Mr. Jas. Weddells was elected a 

 member of the Club. 



PAPERS. 



i. By Professor W. Baldwin Spencer, entitled " Collecting 

 Notes from Central Australia." 



In this paper Professor Spencer gave a brief account of a trip 

 made to Charlotte Waters during the months of January and 

 February, 1895. The objects of the trip were to secure certain 

 forms of animals only obtainable after a heavy rainfall in the 

 central desert region and to observe the change in the nature of 

 the country at such a season. The country, which in the middle 

 of the previous year had been dry and the vegetation parched, 

 was now fresh and green with rich herbage, which had suddenly 

 sprung up. The claypans and waterholes were filled and alive 

 with frogs which had emerged from the burrows in which they 

 had been activating. In particular the burrowing frog, Chiro- 

 leptes platycephalus, which when aestivating has its body filled 

 with water and swollen out like an orange, was now plentiful, 

 though during the dry season it can only be obtained by digging 

 it out of its burrow. Another burrowing form, Heleioporus 

 pictus, was also plentiful. Many of the waterholes contained 

 numerous tadpoles, which had evidently developed rapidly, as no 

 trace of spawn could be found, though the pools had only been 

 flooded for a short time. 



In the claypans numerous specimens of a new species of 

 Apus of a large size were found, this being the first occasion on 

 which this genus has been definitely described from Australia. 



Amongst marsupials, a specimen of the now rare Pig-footed 

 Bandicoot, Chceropus castanotis ; a well-developed female 

 Marsupial Mole, Notoryctes typhlops, showing the pouch and two 

 teats clearly; a few specimens of the rare Phascologale cristicauda, 

 and specimens of a new species of Phascologale of the size of a 

 large rat, were obtained. 



Of lizards a fair collection, including four new species, was 

 made. In one spot on the Finke River a good number of the 

 somewhat rare and beautifully coloured Amphibolurus maculatus 

 was collected, and it was noted that there was a well-marked 

 difference in colouration between the male and female. Amongst 

 the frogs, especially, it was observable that the colours were 

 much brighter than during the dry season. 



The animals collected form a valuable supplement to those 

 obtained during the recent Horn expedition, when, owing to the 

 dryness of the country, certain of them (such as the Apus) could 

 not be obtained, though typical of the central district. 



2. A second paper, compiled by Mr. H. Kendall, entitled 

 " Jottings from Townsville," was, in the absence of the author, 



