A COLLECTION OF SUB-FOSSIL BIRD AND 
MARSUPIAL REMAINS FROM KING ISLAND, 
BASS STRAIT. 
By Baldwin Spencer, C.M G., M.A., F.R.S., Hon. Director of 
the National Museum, and J. A. Kershaw, F.E.S., 
Curator of the Zoological Collections. 
King Island lies at the western entrance to Bass Strait, almost 
midway between Victoria and Tasmania. <A line of sounding, 
between the island and Tasmania, as laid down in the Admiralty 
charts, shows an average depth of thirty-two fathoms. The 
lowest is twenty, the highest forty-four, and the great majority 
range between thirty and thirty-five fathoms. A line between 
King Island and Cape Otway, on the Victorian coast, averages 
nearly forty-eight fathoms. The lowest is thirty-nine, the highest 
fifty-five. 
The date of the formation of Bass Strait is a matter of doubts 
but it may in all probability be assigned to the Post Pliocene 
period.* ; 
The fauna of Tasmania differs from that of Victoria partly in 
the absence of certain animals, such as the Dingo (Canis dingo) and 
the flying phalangers amongst the marsupials, and partly in_ the 
presence of others, such as Thylacinus and Sarcophilus, which 
are now extinct on the mainland of Australia. Such differences as 
exist between the fauna of Victoria, south of the Dividing Range, 
and that of Tasmania, may be regarded as due to the formation of 
Bass Strait, which resulted, during comparatively recent times, in 
the separation of ‘Tasmania from the south-east part of Australia. 
Some idea of the nature of the land bridge that once stretched 
across between Victoria aud what is now the island of Tasmania 
can be gained from a study of its remnants, as revealed to us in 
the chain of islands that stud both the western and the eastern 
margins of Bass Strait. The central part of the strait is open 
water, but on the eastern side a chain of islands, consisting in the 
north of smaller groups, such as the Curtis and Kent, and in the 
south the larger Furneaux group, lead across from Wilson’s Pro- 
montory on the mainland to the north-east corner of Tasmania. On 
the west there is King Island, and close to the north-west point of 
* Howitt, Presidential Address, Anthrop. Sect. Aust. Ass. Ady. Sci., Sydney, 1898, Vol- 
VII., p. 741. 
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