Lect. Ill] THE AUSTRALIAN FLORA AND FAUNA. 85 



delights were with, those living creatures, whose evolution was, as 

 yet, so far off. 



I think that Solomon, who rejoiced so greatly in the living crea- 

 tures of his own country, would have been less enthusiastic over the 

 lower and less beautiful types of Australia. 



The aboriginal human inhabitants of that strange country — 

 Australia — the home of that grey, cheerless vegetation, and of those 

 lowly unintelligent quadrupeds, have never shown any signs of 

 mental evolution ; at their best they have risen but little above the 

 dignity of a " connecting link.'' 



Palestine, most probably, and England, we know, did once possess a 

 Flora and Fauna the counterpart of that now existing in Australia, but 

 we have no evidence with regard to that human type, in its archaic state, 

 which in the fulness of its evolution, long afterwards, took to Poetry and 

 Biology. There is an unusually thick mist over that matter, a dark- 

 ness that is felt, for its effect is very disappointing and distressing 

 to the modern type of mind. There is no doubt that Darwin has 

 roused our curiosity about these things to an almost morbid degree ; 

 but let us look in the direction where the mist is lifting a little. Nature 

 has set the Marsupials in the very midst of the higher tribes of the 

 Vertebrata, and especially of the Mammalia : they are the mid-beasts. 

 Sir E. Owen long ago got some light upon the peculiar position of 

 the Marsupials, in relation to the truly viviparous Mammals ; Dr. Chap- 

 man has lately helped the matter considerably, and Professor Osborn 

 has thrown new and most welcome light upon it; and he wUl not 

 rest until the problem of the development of these types is fairly 

 solved. One of those poetical emotional Easterns rises into the most 

 joyous raptures over the early development of a man, of himself in- 

 deed ; but he turns his thoughts all to poetical and devotional purposes. 

 He had the stuff of a biologist in him, but lacked the proper train- 

 ing. Let us look at the beginning of this mystery of development 

 in a lower type. If we take a very low kind of fish, say the river Lam- 

 prey, we shall find that it lays a countless number of small eggs that 

 are hatched in the water, and the fry are like so many small black 

 worms. Very little care is taken by the Lamprey, and by most of the 

 common fishes, of their spawn and fry, but in some cases, as in the Pipe 

 Pish (Si/TignatJius), the eggs undergo their development in pockets or 

 jjouches in the abdominal region of the male. Some river fishes of 



