127 



dians, are the scenes of some of the most tremendous volcanic phe- 

 nomena on record. The mode in which the waters condensed 

 upon the vast continent of Australia are disposed of, — whether by 

 evaporation from inland seas or lakes, or conducted to the ocean 

 by rivers, whose existence has hitherto escaped detection, is an- 

 other great question connected in all probability with its geologi- 

 cal structure. But there is no subject of greater interest to us, at 

 present, than the fossil organized remains of that country ; a 

 knowledge of which, especially of the remains of animals, will be an 

 addition of capital importance to our subject, and probably not less 

 valuable to the Zoologist. The diluvium, therefore, respecting 

 which we have at present no information whatever, is deserving of 

 the greatest attention : and since the existing races of Australian 

 animals are so widely different from those of every other portion 

 of the earth, the identity, on the one hand, of these animals with 

 those occurring in a fossil state, would lead to some of the most im- 

 portant inferences ; while on the other, the agreement of the fossil 

 remains of Australia with the existing races of other regions, now 

 disjoined from that country, would give new support to some of the 

 most popular speculations of our day. With a view to these in- 

 quirieSj scarcely anything that can be collected by our fellow la- 

 bourers in that quarter, will be without interest to their friends in 

 Europe. 



The popularity which the study of Zoology continues to ac- 

 quire in England, opens the brightest hopes in every department 

 of inquiry connected with that important branch of natural history. 

 Our Papers dui'ing the past year have added to the list of fossil 

 animals two new species of Mastodon, connecting very beautifully 

 the structure of the teeth in the animals of that genus previously 

 known, with that of the Elephant. And Mr. Pentland has given an 

 account of some fossils from Bengal, presented through the kind- 

 ness of Mr. Colebrooke ; which include the remains of a new An- 

 thracotherium, and appear to have been situated in a deposit re- 

 sembling some of the tertiary strata of Europe. 



We owe to Mr. Broderip, one of the Secretaries of our Society, 

 a Paper in the Zoological Journal*, describing the Fossil jaw of a 

 Didelphis, found at Stonesfield, the geological situation of which 

 had been the subject of some debate ; with a statement of the evi- 

 dence by which its true place in our series of strata is proved to 

 be within the oolitic-slate beneath the Oxford-clay, probably very 

 near the site of the forest-marble. 



From Dr. Buckland we have had a description of the remains of 

 a new species of Pterodactyle, discovered by Miss Anning in the 

 lias at Lyme Regis. The head of the only specimen yet found is 

 wanting; but the remainder of the skeleton warrants the distinction 

 of it from the two species described by M. Cuvier. The length 

 of the claws, especially, is a prominent character ; from whence 

 the author has given to this species the name of Macronyx. Mr. 

 Miller of Bristol, several years ago, suggested that the bones found 



* Zoological Journal, vol. iii. p. 408, &c. 



