XXVI 



INTBODUCTION. 



the very last to disappear was the small Mesopteryx didinus. In 1878, Mr. Squires, of Queens- 

 town, obtained and sent to the British Museum the head, with a continuous part of the neck, of 

 this species of Moa, with the trachea enclosed and covered by the dried integument, and ex- 

 hibiting even the sclerotic bone-ring of the dried eye-balls ; also the bones of both legs with the 

 feet covered by the dried skin, with some feathers adhering to it, and the claws intact. Be 

 that as it may, the only representatives of this ancient race that we have at the present day 

 are the diminutive Kiwis, of which I have been treating. This remarkable sequence in the deve- 

 lopment of animal life on the earth, the larger forms preceding in geological time the smaller, 

 appears to have been universal. The distinguishing feature of the Mesozoic period was the 

 development of Saurians of marvellous size. From the Oolitic beds in the Kocky Mountains of 

 North America, the remains of huge Dinosaurians have been obtained, among these being the 

 Atlantosaurus, the largest land animal yet known to have existed on the earth ; for Professor 

 Marsh describes it as "having been between 50 ft. and 60 ft. long, and, when standing erect, 

 at least 30 ft. high ! " At the present day our largest saurians are crocodiles and alligators. 

 But, coming down to Pliocene and Pleistocene times, we have only to think of the mammoth and 

 the mastodon, the dinotherium and the megatherium, the diprotodon and the Irish elk, and 

 compare them with the elephant and the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros and the buffalo, of .the 

 present epoch, to realise the full force of this truth. 



But now let me give another illustration from nearer home — one drawn from the discoveries 

 of Dr. Stirling, F.B.S., in South Australia,* the importance of which, from a scientific point of view, 

 it would be impossible to over-estimate. I will shortly state the facts so far as they have yet 

 become known. In the central part of South Australia there is a vast stony desert lying to the 

 eastward of Lake Frome and to the westward of the Grey Kange. It is described as being 

 unspeakably arid and desolate, abounding in salt-pans, of which Lake Mulligan is the largest. 

 This forbidding district is entirely destitute of fresh water and almost absolutely devoid of animal 

 life of any kind. The intrepid explorer, Captain Sturt, in 1844, penetrated about half-way across 

 this inhospitable plain, and then, after suffering great hardships, had to make his way out of it 

 to escape absolute starvation. Up to the present time this region has been to all intents and 

 purposes a sealed book. But an important discovery of fossil bones has been made at Lake 

 Mulligan, and, chiefly through the scientific enterprise of Dr. Stirling (aided all through by the 

 generous liberality of Sir Thomas Elder), this discovery has been followed up with very 

 astonishing results. A correspondent of the Scotsman, writing on the spot and from his own 

 knowledge and observations, states that, after four months' digging among the gravels of the 

 valley of the Mulligan, some two thousand bones, representing seventy different mammals and 

 birds hitherto unknown, had been unearthed, and safely lodged in the South Australian Museum 

 at Adelaide. This collection comprised the first complete skeleton of Diprotodon australis, a 

 gigantic marsupial considerably exceeding the rhinoceros in size, the remains of a giant wombat 

 as large as a half-grown bullock, several kinds of colossal birds equalling in stature the Moa 

 of New Zealand, and several species of gigantic kangaroos ! 



As may be gathered from the views here expressed, I am a thorough disciple of Darwinism in 

 the higher sense of that term. I do not think it is possible to explain on any other hypothesis 

 the wonderful variety and complexity of living forms that inhabit this beautiful world of ours. 

 We must, as it seems to me, acknowledge, with the author of ' The Origin of Species,' in one of 

 his later works, that " man, with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most 



* Dr. Stirling writes ('Proc. Zool. Soc.,' 1893, p. 474) : " Professor Tate informs me that the geological formation 

 of this salt-lake district of South Central Australia must be considered Pliocene. Lake Mulligan is, like Lake Eyre, 

 Lake Frome, and other neighbouring lakes marked in this map, a vast level expanse of salt-encrusted, black mud, only 

 becoming filled after very heavy rains, which are not of very frequent occurrence. Lake Mulligan is relatively small, 

 being only about eight miles across, and the Diprotodon remains are somewhere about midway between the east and 

 west edges/' 



