Miscellaneous. 891 



coasts of Queensland and northern New South "Wales would best be 

 described as Papuan. Indeed, so distinct is this latter, that a sepa- 

 ration of Australian life into Papuan and non-Papuan seems to the 

 writer to be the primarj' divisions into which fall the Australian 

 fauna and flora. 



The types encountered by a traveller in tropical Queensland, or 

 rather in that narrow belt of tropical Queensland hemmed in 

 between the Cordillera and the Pacific, all wear a foreign aspect. 

 Among mammals may be instanced the cuscus and tree-kangaroo ; 

 among reptiles, the crocodile, the liana or true frog, and the tree- 

 snakes ; among birds, the cassowary and rifle-birds ; among butter- 

 flies, the Ornitlwptera ; among plants, the wild banana, orange and 

 mangosteen, the rhododendron, the epiphytic orchids, and the palms ; 

 so that, in the heart of a great Queensland " scrub,'' a naturalist 

 could scarcely answer, from his surroundings, whether he were in 

 New Guinea or Australia. It may be supposed that late in the 

 Tertiary epoch Torres Straits, now only a few fathoms deep, was 

 upheaved, and that a stream of Papuan life poured into Australia 

 across the bridge so made. 



Sharply defined from the tropical jungle above mentioned are 

 areas occupied by strictly Australian vegetation, which are left 

 invariably in possession of the poorest tracts of land. From the 

 rich lauds, formerly no doubt possessed by them, everywhere have 

 they been ousted by the invading flora. 



Regarding the origin of the Euronotian fauna and flora, sundry 

 facts collected by Mr. H. 0. Forbes, in his paper on the Chatham 

 Islands, would suggest a South American source. Assuming that, 

 in or before the Miocene, continuous land extended from Tierra del 

 Puego to Tasmania, the derivation of the Australian marsupials 

 appearing in the Pliocene from their South American allies 

 Prothylacinus and Amphiproviverra of the Eocene would be clear. 

 Mr. Forbes adduces strong confirmatory evidence from Professor 

 Parker, who, on embryological grounds, does not hesitate to assume 

 as ancestors of certain Australian crows a form allied to the 

 American Dendrocalaptine birds. The distribution of the parrots 

 and the cystignathous frogs appear also to sustain the theory. 

 The extinct alligator, Pallimnarcfms, found in Queensland and New 

 South Wales, associated with Diprotodon, strengthens the chain of 

 evidence, as does the occurrence in Tasmania and South Australia 

 of GundlacMa, otherwise exclusively an American mollusk. 



As the name implies, the AutochtJionian is the oldest member 

 of the Australian faunas and floras. The date of its arrival in 

 Australia and the route which it traversed are lost in antiquity. 

 Seeing that many resemblances exist between our vegetation and 

 that of Timor and the south-east Austro-Malayan islands, perhaps 

 these lands afforded the passage to Australia. 



Summary. — Superimposed one above another may be distin- 

 guished three divisions of Australian life. The earliest is the 

 Autochthonian. Possibly this arrived from the Austro-Malayan 

 islands in or before the Cretaceous era, and spread over the whole 



