A GLIMPSE OF THE POST-TERTIARY AVIFAUNA 
OF QUEENSLAND. 
Ry C. W. de Vis, M.A. 
(Plates xxxiii.-xxxvi). 
Of the smaller relics of the 'Aoalth of vertebrate life lately 
become extinct in this portion of Australia, most of those known 
to the writer have been yielded by the Darling Downs in the 
immediate neighbourhood of Chinchilla, a township 200 miles by 
rail west of Brisbane. The Chinchilla deposits are beds of sand 
of considerable but unascertained thickness, containing local accu- 
mulations of mutilated and with rare exceptions unconnected bones, 
and overlaid by a hard conglomerate of argillaceous gilt and 
gravel, with similar bones embedded, and evidently a lacustrine 
beach or river bank detritus. The chief exposure of the fossil 
remains occurs about thx’ee miles from the township on the north 
bank of the River Condamine, where the river in flood has cut 
into one of these bone beds. Here we acquire the greater part of 
the knowledge we have of the freshwater productions of the 
period. Molluscs ( Unio, Vivipara, Melania, Cyclas), Fishes ( Oli- 
gontB, Ceratodus, Copidoglanis), Alligators {Pallimnarchus) and 
turtles here mingle with sjxecies of terrestrial vertebrates in 
profusion. And as we may reasonably infer from such commix- 
ture, that we are upon or near the edge of a once densely popu- 
lated watercourse or basin, we naturally anticipate that the Ixirds 
which may perchance have added their (juota to the buried coinage 
of the past, will for the most part belong to tribes which for 
food or drink haunt the mai’gins or explore the waters of the 
lakes and rivers of the present day. The expectation has been 
realized by an examination of the few bird bones brought to Hglit ] 
