GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY. 15 



Australia, for the reception and porterage of their infants. As not unexceptionally 

 happens with its homotype in modern civilisation the more or less elaborate 

 perambulator this infant receptacle, when not in demand for the more legitimate 

 purpose of its construction, is frequently employed for the baser purposes of deporting 

 supplies for the family commissariat. The specimen here figured, is a remarkably fine 

 and well-shaped example, measuring over three feet in length. It was obtained by the 

 author at Derby, in the neighbourhood of King's Sound, and has been contributed by 

 him to the ethnological collections of the Oxford University Museum. 



This short notice of a few of the more salient characteristics of the Australian 

 aborigines may be concluded by a reference to the photograph reproduced in Plate II. 

 It depicts about a score of the warriors of the Roebuck Bay district, Western Aus- 

 tralia, in one of their festal dances, or so-called corroborees, clad for the occasion in 

 fullest ball-dress costume, and taken, in the majority of instances, literally " on the 

 hop." The shapes and proportionate dimensions of the several weapons previously 

 referred to, as also the physical development of the natives of this particular tribe, 

 are very clearly portrayed in the illustration. 



The animal inhabitants of Australasia, other than homo sapiens, provide the 

 naturalist with a wide field for speculative interpretation and investigation. The mam- 

 malian class alone furnishes evidence of its high antiquity in the fact that, with the 

 exception of the Dingo, or wild dog, which there is strong reason to believe was 

 introduced by human agency, and a few rodents, all its members belong to the 

 primitive marsupialian order, or to the yet lower organised one of the monotremata. 

 This last-named group includes but two Australian specific types, the familiar Spiny 

 Ant-eater, Echidna aculeate-, or so-called " Porcupine," of the Australian settlers, and 

 the yet more remarkable Duck-billed Platypus or Ornithorhynchus, Ornithorhynchns 

 paradoxus. Photographic representations of both of these very singular animals will 

 be found reproduced on Plate III. A third species, Proechidna Brugnii, very nearly 

 related to the ordinary Echidna, is, in company with the last-named species, indigen- 

 ous also to New Guinea. The essential external characteristic of the representatives 

 of this small but most interesting order is the peculiar beak-like modification of the 

 mouth and the accompanying rudimentary nature, or, as in Echidna, complete 

 obliteration of the teeth. The internal structure of the monotremata is yet more 

 remarkable, approximating in certain essential details to that of the Sauropsida or birds 

 and reptiles. This implied affinity has, within recent years, been more conclusively 

 established by the discovery that the young are produced from eggs laid by the 



