47 



which tends to confirm the general evidence of the separation 

 of Tasmania from Australia in very remote periods. The 

 Thlyacoleo once appealed to as an extinct form of 

 our existing Tasmanian Thylacinus is now proved 

 to be a species of squirrel of gigantic size. It was 

 though once to be a formidable carnivore, and a 

 match for the Biprotodon. The Thylacinus cynoceplialus and 

 Sarcophilus ursinus, now peculiar to Tasmania, are both found 

 fossil in Australia. This induces one to enquire whether the 

 negative evidence is sufficient to conclude that none of our 

 larger Tasmanian mammals were found in this island. Among 

 some fossils submitted to me by the curator of the Bris- 

 bane Museum, Mr. Steiger, was a very peculiar one from the 

 Darling Downs, thought to be a reptilian scute or a fragment 

 of a chelonian carapace. It proved to be a very valuable 

 missing link, a fossil tooth of a Ceratodus. A living Cera- 

 todus{C. Foster i Giinther) was found in 1869 in the Eiver 

 Burnett, in Queensland, and since then other species have 

 been found in the Mary and Fitzroy rivers. The only pre- 

 viously known species of the genus were teeth found in very 

 low secondary rocks, that is Triassic. The occurrence of a 

 fossil form of larger size, tends to carry the genus one step 

 further back, and is another fact in the many which show 

 how secondary forms survive in the Australian continent, of 

 which the Triyonia, Marsupialia, Cycadece, &c, &c, are 

 instances. 



We find in the botany of eastern Australia a very uniform 

 character, even though it ranges in climate from equatorial to 

 temperate. I have already stated that Asiatic species prevail 

 in the northern part. But sometimes anomalous and tropical 

 forms have a very wide range. Thus our cabbage tree palm 

 is found abuudantly as far south as the Shoalhaven Eiver, 

 and is also common about Port Denison. Besides Corypha 

 Australis we have the beautiful Seaforthia elegans ranging 

 from Jarvis Bay to the lat. 19 deg. But I must say that I 

 have some slight doubts as to this. Baron von Mueller has 

 lately shown that a species long mistaken for 8. elegans is a 

 palm of an entirely different genus, JPtychosperma Alexandrite, 

 and. the species grow side by side in some places, yet in the 

 far north I think the latter quite supplants its graceful ally. 

 Nothing more beautiful can be imagined than the dense 

 scrubs of this palm in the northern regions, surrounded by a 

 most luxuriant vegetation of ferns and dark evergreens, and 

 bound together by vines and creepers. These make the 

 scrubs impassable almost, for the huge serpentine folds of 

 one creeper (very often Entada seandens) will cover twenty or 

 thirty trees, and over an acre of ground. When it is remem- 



