REMARKABLE CONTRAST OF SPECIES 323 



{Hydromys chrysogaster) ; that is, the animal when living 

 could not have been much less than six feet in total 

 length. This monstrous rat was clearly not a marsupial. 

 The bones were in so fragile a state that they had to be 

 handled with great caution to prevent complete destruc- 

 tion. Found in the damp sand of a dry river-bed, they 

 had probably been washed up from some much older 

 deposit. 



The remains of animals of the kangaroo genus are the 

 most abundant in nearly all parts of Australia, and here 

 the evolutionist can certainly create a complete chain of 

 evidence in support of his theory. Indeed, I am surprised 

 that Australia is so much neglected by the speculative 

 geologist, for not only can a complete series of kangaroos 

 be established there, but another also, of smaller mar- 

 supials — those of the opossum genus — might, I think, be 

 easily put together, to say nothing of many minor bits 

 of interesting evidence of great use in a general way. 



Both kangaroos and opossums were formerly of 

 gigantic size ; but a few of the latter were smaller than 

 any existing species, and it is puzzling to find all the 

 marsupials of the two named classes existing in great 

 variety of size apparently at the same moment. It would 

 be more convincing if the evolutionist could point to a 

 successive series of ascending or descending types; but 

 that, I am afraid, he could not do in Australia. An 

 opossum that weighed perhaps forty pounds, and another 

 that weighed no more than an ounce once undoubtedly lived 

 side by side in the dense forests of some of the Blue 

 Mountain and Queensland valleys; while it is probable 

 that the giant kangaroo weighed more than a ton, and 

 fed on a plain that swarmed with wallabies that did not 

 exceed a squirrel in size. There must have been a 

 surprising state of things on the earth, and in Australia in 

 particular, before the dawn of the modern age. In the 

 latter country there was no beast of prey capable of 

 attacking the larger marsupials, nor, indeed, of affecting 

 the balance of species in any way ; and how that balance 

 was maintained it is most puzzling to conceive. That 



