1895.] Zoology. 675 
Australia, and the Euronotian, seated in eastern Australia and Tas- 
mania ; a subsidary division, less in value and derivable from both of 
the above, is the Eremian or desert fauna and flora. 
Taking this disposition as the basis of my remarks, I would observe 
that eastern Australia contains two distinct biological populations, 
where Professor Tate has located one, the Euronotien. This title, I 
propose, should be reserved for that fauna and flora characteristic of 
Tasmania, Victoria, and southern New South Wales; while the second 
and very distinct fauna and flora developed on the coasts of Queens- 
land and northern New South Wales would best be described as Pap- 
uan. Indeed, so distinct is this latter, that a separation of Australian 
life into Papuan and non-Papuan seems to the writer to be the prim- 
ary division to be made of the Australian fauna and flora. 
The types encountered by a traveler in tropical Queensland, or 
rather in that narrow belt of tropical Queensland, hemmed in between 
the Cordillera and the Pacific, all wear a foreign aspect. Among 
mammals may be instanced the cuscus and tree kangaroo; among rep- 
tiles, the crocodile, the Rana, or true frog, and the tree snakes; among 
birds, the cassowary and rifle birds; among butterflies, the Ornithop- 
tera; among plants, the wild banana, orange and mangosteen, the rho- 
dodendron, the epiphytic orchids, and the palms; so that, in the heart 
of a great Queensland “scrub,” a naturalist could scarcely answer, 
from his surroundings, whether he were in New Guinea or Australia. 
It may be supposed that late in the Tertiary epoch, Torres Straits, now 
only a few fathoms deep, was dry land, and that a stream of Papuan 
life poured into Australia across the bridge so made. 
Sharply defined from the tropical jungle above mentioned are areas 
occupied by strictly Australian vegetation, which are left invariably 
in possession of the poorest tracts of land. From the rich lands, for- 
merly no doubt possessed by them, everywhere have they been ousted 
by the invading flora. 
Regarding the origin of the Furonien fauna and flora, sundry facts 
collected by Mr. H. O. Forbes, in his paper on the Chatham Islands, 
would suggest a South American source. Assuming that, in or before 
the Miocene, continuous land extended from Terra del Fuego to Tas- 
mania, the derivation of the Australian marsupials appearing in the 
Pliocene from their South American allies, Prothylacinus and Amphi- 
proviverra of the Eocene, would be clear. Mr. Forbes adduces strong 
confirmatory evidence from Professor Parker who, on embryological 
grounds, does not hesitate to assume as ancestors of certain Australian 
crows a form allied to the American Dendrocalaptine birds. The dis- 
