1348 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



and Roper Rivers, as a solitary representative of this tribe of Gigantic Grasses in our 

 North-west. The Pandanus of the North Coast is identical with the common species of 

 India, the leaves of which are so much used for rough coffee and sugar bags; the 

 Water Pandanus is a smaller species of very graceful habit. 



The Australian Flora in its ordinary displays, as well as in its numeric specificy, is 

 grander and richer than that of all Europe ; indeed, the number of well-marked species 

 of our flowering plants now known amounts to about nine thousand, and to these, by 

 the researches of the next century, perhaps another thousand may be added to the 

 species described in the Flora Anstralicusis. 



A hope is entertained that a history of the local achievements of science in this 

 part of the world will soon be written, when also just tributes can be paid to all 

 furtherers of phytologic research, who here among us worked for the credit of the past 

 and the benefit of future generations. But in grand literary efforts for the Australian 

 Flora three stand pre-eminent in never-fading lustre ; of whom the plants on almost 

 ever)' square mile of this Great Southern Land will speak in living words for all ages, 

 transmitting their fame in natural inscriptions of bloom and verdure, commemorating their 

 achievements in forest and prairie, and with their great names we will conclude, namely, 

 those of ROBERT BROWN, GEORGE BENTHAM and JOSEPH -HOOKER. 



FAUNA. 



TT^ROM the date of Dampier's famous voyage to Terra Australis, in 1699, the strange- 

 fauna of the remote Australian region was a subject of keen interest to naturalists. 

 Dampier's contribution to the knowledge of this fauna was not great, as his opportu- 

 nities were not favourable, owing to the inhospitable character of that part of the western 

 coast on which he landed; but he appears to have been the first, in 1700, to see a kangaroo 

 or wallaby ; he saw also dingoes, or native dogs ; the dugong, or Australian sea-cow, already 

 known in Indian and Malaysian seas; remarked on the flocks of white cockatoos, and has 

 some curious observations on a peculiar lizard, which, from his description, is readily recog- 

 nizable as that familiarly known as the " shingle-back." The scanty store of interesting 

 facts thus obtained was added to by successive expeditions, including those entrusted to 

 Cook, Bougainville, D'Entrecasteaux, Flinders and others, and by the explorations of Arthur 

 Phillip and John White, until, quite early in the present century, a fairly complete know- 

 ledge had been gained of most of the novel and striking features in the animal life of 

 Australia and New Zealand. 



The interest which the new Australian animals excited was, at first, an interest in their 

 strange external shapes, the peculiar anomalies which, superficially considered, they presented 



a quadruped with a beak like a 'duck and webbed feet; a hedgehog with a long bill and 

 no teeth ; a bird without wings ; these and other strange combinations excited the wonder 

 of naturalists acquainted with the animal life of the Northern Hemisphere. But the interest 

 did not long continue that of wonder merely. It soon came to be clear that the animal 

 life of Terra Australis afforded a very great assistance towards the comprehension of the 

 whole animal life of the globe, to the better understanding of the geographical and 

 geological distribution of animal forms, and of their relationships to one another. It is not 





