320 FOSSIL REMAINS 



yet an unexplored region ; but I am surprised that more 

 work has not been done in the vast Pacific region. The 

 information we have of the Polynesian islands, even the 

 larger ones, is not sufficiently copious to be of much real 

 use to the evolutionist ; and there is New Guinea, too, 

 and the large islands of the Indian Ocean. These are 

 scarcely tapped sources of information, which I expect 

 by-and-by, when they have been thoroughly searched by 

 really competent men, will prove to be a rich mine of 

 intelligence concerning the origin and distribution of the 

 marsupialia. Islands are peculiarly valuable sources of 

 information on such subjects as the origin, survival, and 

 migration of animated groups, as is evidenced by New 

 Guinea, Celebes, Borneo, Timor, Madagascar, and our 

 own island-continent of Australia. Nor are even very 

 small islands wanting in rich information on the same 

 subjects. I need not go so far afield as the Galapagos 

 and some of the small islands of Africa to illustrate this 

 fact. Many of the mere islets which surround the 

 Australian continent have their peculiar species, as 

 Depuch, Abrolhos, and Barrow islands, and many others 

 which do not contain twenty square miles of surface. 

 Until these islands, large and small, are better known, I 

 think it would be futile, if not actually presumptuous, to 

 attempt to show that Australia is, or is not, the natural 

 home of the order which without doubt at the present 

 day reigns supreme there. All that I can do, therefore — 

 all I am justified in attempting to do — is to add my mite 

 to the information which is slowly accumulating, and 

 which will in good time, I firmly believe, enable us to 

 trace the most curious and interesting of modern groups 

 of mammals to the true basis whence they sprang. 



Ancient human remains are very scarce on the 

 Australian continent. There is no evidence that the 

 land was ever inhabited by any race much dissimilar in 

 make and habit to that which now roams its deserts and 

 which is fast travelling to the bourn whence neither race 

 nor individual ever returns. Admitting (which, however, 

 I do not) that there are two races of aborigines on the 



