120 Si'EXCER, Laud and Fresh-Waler Fauna. [ Vol' x'xx'v 1 1 . 



THE NECESSITY FOR AN IMMEDIATE AND CO- 

 ORDINATED INVESTIGATION INTO THE LAND 

 AND I-RESH-WATl'lR FAUNA OF AUSTRALIA AND 

 TASMANIA. 



Bv Sir Baldwin Spencer. K.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.Sc. 



The matter of the investigation of the land and fresh-water 

 fauna of AustraUa is one of pressing importance. From the 

 purely taxonomic point of view the Imtanic record is probably 

 more complete and satisfactory th;in the zoological. It is 

 much more easy to collect and study plants than animals. The 

 former cannot get out of your way, while it is a prhnary instinct 

 of the latter to do so. It is very significant of what has taken 

 place in regard to biological collecting in Austraha that tliert' 

 is a notable Banksian botanical collection, but no such Banksian 

 zoological one. The time lias come when it is miperative for 

 us to make some organized attempt not only to take a census 

 of our Austrahan fauna but to study it in its natural sur- 

 roundings. Only those who have collected, more or less 

 consistently, any special group of animals during the j^ast 

 tv\'enty-five years realize to the full how rapidly our .\ustridian 

 fauna is being exterminated. Not many years ago it was 

 possible to go just a few miles out of Melbourne to collect animals 

 now unprocurable. The opening up of the country has had far- 

 reaching effects upon the whole fauna. The introduction of 

 dogs, cats, rabbits, and foxes, quite apart from the havoc 

 caused by man in clearing the country, has meant the exterm- 

 ination of an appreciable part of the fauna. To lake only 

 one example : th(; destruction of the scrub and forest in the 

 valley of the Bass Riv^er has resulted in the complete extermina- 

 tion of one of our most interesting marsupials, the little 

 opossum-like Gymnobelidcw^ leadbeateri. There are actually 

 only four specimens of this extant, and it is extremely unlikely, 

 owing to its very iimited area of distribution, that any more 

 will be found. To take another case in regard to lower but 

 equally interesting forms : Some years ago a few of us inter- 

 ested in natural history spent a day or two turning over logs 

 «)n the Dandenong hills. In one day we secured nc^ less tlian 

 thirteen species of land })lanarians, together with plentiful 

 specimens of Peripatus and Geoneim-rtes, the land nemertine. 

 Searching the same spots recently, we found only a vi-ry few- 

 specimens of two species of planarJans, no F(Tipatus, and no 

 Geonemertes. Settlement and bush-fin^s are interfering 

 disastrously with the land and fresh- water fauna, and yet it 

 is perhaps the most interesting in an\' part of the world. 

 Important as is the study of the marine fauna, \\v nmst. from 

 a scientific j)oint of view, realize very dearly llie fa( t that 



