ON THE ACTION OF METALLIC SALTS. 325 



The Autochthonian Province is without distinctive features 

 other than specific. 



Tlie Eieniian Province lias many specific and some generic 

 peculiarities, but is essentially Australian. 



By the same agency that introduced the Andean Flora, we owe 

 a few animal forms of identical genera whose species are either 

 similar or modified. Among fish, there are Galaxias, Geotria, 

 Mordacia, Jlajilochiton, Prototroctes, and Apliritis : and Gundlacliia 

 among MoUusca. 



The extinct land mammalia, which in point of time immediately 

 preceded the living, consists of the peculiar marsupial type, and 

 under dimensions as varied as are the placental wild beasts of 

 larger continents. Creatures nearest of kin to them have lived 

 and bred on land which forms part of Great Britain anterior to 

 the Chalk. And the marsupials, like the flora, had a common 

 ancestry in the Secondary Period. 



The elaboration of such generalisations in the several depart- 

 ments of Zoology I must leave to each specialist. In such 

 investigations we must keep well in mind the degree of facility 

 that each plant or animal offers to migration, and the mutual 

 relationship of certain species of the two kingdoms. How far 

 the wide distribution of the Emu is correlated with that of 

 Fiwanxs, of certain parrots with particular species of Acacia, of 

 Dica^iim Jiornndinaceutn with the miseltoes, of the procumbent 

 StypJidias with the stump-tailed lizard, are examples of sug- 

 gested interpendency, in a wide and interesting field observation 

 which may well occupy the attention of those who have knowledge 

 of the habits of the animals. 



In conclusion, I beg to suggest that this Section imitate a 

 scheme for the investigation of the Fauna of this Continent on 

 those lines which seem best to fuse the species into geographic 

 groups, as dependent on — (1) physical features of surface and 

 climate, and — (2) the era of introduction. 



The following papers were read : — 



l._ON THE ACTION OF METALLIC SALTS IN THE 

 DEVELOPMENT OF ASPERGILLUS NIGRESCENS. 



By William :\L Hamlet, F.I.C, F.C.S., Analyst to the New 

 South Wales Government, Sydney. 



Some months ago a very curious sample of liread came into my 

 hands for analysis. The specimen consisted of a slice about half 

 an inch thick and presented a strange appearance ; the whole of 

 the interstices, forming the well-known honeycombed character 



