Scientific Tutelligence— Zoology. 363 
hitherto discovered, either fossil or recent, is a bird ; in Australia, if 
compared with New Zealand, creation appears to have considerably 
. advanced, but even here the order Rodentia is the highest in the 
scale of its indigenous animal productions; the great majority of its 
quadrupeds being the Marsupiata (kangaroos, &c.) and the Monotre- 
mata, (Echidna,-and Ornithorynchus), which are the very lowest of 
the Mammalia ; and its ornithology being characterized by the pre- 
sence of certain peculiar genera, Talegalla, Leipoa,and Megapodius ; 
birds which do not incubate their own eggs, and which are perhaps 
the lowest representations of their class,* while the low organiza- 
tion of its botany is indicated by the remarkable absence of fruit- 
bearing trees, the Cerealia, &c¢.—(Gould’s Birds of Australia.) 
6. Migratory Birds of Australia, &e.—Mr Gould gives the fol- 
lowing summary of the distribution of the birds of Australia. 386 
species inhabit New South Wales, 289 South Australia, 243 West- 
ern Australia, 230 Northern Australia, and 181 Van Diemen’s 
‘ Land; and that of these, 88 are peculiar to New South Wales ; 
16 to South Australia; 36 to Western Australia; 105 to Northern 
Australia; and 82 to Van Diemen’s Land. 
The great excess in the number of species inhabiting New South 
Wales is doubtless attributable to the singular belt of luxuriant vege- 
tation, termed brushes, which stretches along the southern and south- 
eastern coasts, between the ranges and the sea, and which is tenanted 
by a fauna peculiarly its own. 
Although this part of the Continent is inhabited by a larger num- 
ber of species than any other, it is a remarkable fact that the species 
peculiar to Northern Australia are much more numerous than 
those peculiar to New South Wales. 
It is curious to observe also, that, while Southern Australia is in- 
habited by a much larger number of species than Western Austra- 
lia, those peculiar to the former are not half so numerous as those 
peculiar to the latter. 
The more southern position, and, consequently, colder climate of 
* The genera, Talegalla, Leipoa, and Megapodius, form part of a great family 
of birds inhabiting Australia, New Guinea, Celebes, and the Philippine Islands, 
whose habits and economy are most singular, and differ from those of every 
other group of birds which now exist upon the surface of the earth. In their 
structure they are most nearly allied to the Gallinacew, while in some of their 
actions, and in their mode of flight, they much resemble the Rallide ; the small 
size of their brain, coupled with the extraordinary means employed for the in- 
cubation of their eyys, indicates an extremely low degree of organization. 
The three species of the family inhabiting Australia, although referable to 
three distinct genera, have many habits in common, particularly in their mode 
of nidification, each and all depositing their eggs in mounds of earth and 
leaves, which, becoming heated either by the fermentation of the vegetable mat- 
ter or of the sun’s rays, form a kind of natural hatching apparatus, from which 
the young at length emerge fully feathered, and capable of sustaining life by 
their own unaided efforts. 
