1504.) ie Mammalian Fauna of the Australian Desert. 9 
probably be five hundred years before abstract science can be supported here, from 
present indications. 
This paper has been withheld from publication three years, as I earnestly desired 
` to make full dissections of widely diverging genera, to fully corroborate the general 
law which may be said to have been arrived at both inductively and Pee 
The pathology of insanity now claims my entire time, and I must leave to others the 
completion of what I have begun 
There have þeen occasional passages in medical journals which bore upon the sub- 
ject of the significance of valves in the veins, but I believe that no one has antici- 
ated me in the announcement of the influence which gravitation exerts upon the 
creation of these valves in quadrupeds, and that man’s veins are valved in such 
manner as to place his derivation from a quadrupedal form beyond dispute. The 
deductions from mechanical influences made in this paper are original, and I cannot 
find that they have been elsewhere mentioned. Certainly the publication of so 
sweeping a statement as that pertaining to the valves would have attracted universal 
attention among comparative anatomists had it been made before, and eminent gen- 
tlemen in that field have confessed to me that the matter was new to them. 
Besides its reading before the University Club, April 18, 1882, the substance of 
this paper was presented by me before the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sci- 
ences last May, as noted in AMERICAN NATURALIST, September, 1883. 
"T°. 
. 
THE MAMMALIAN FAUNA OF THE AUSTRALIAN 
DESERT. 
BY EDWARD B. SANGER, 
HE physical conditions of the interior of Australia are not 
such as to support a varied fauna. The mammals are few in 
number, and -are principally those which are best adapted for dry 
and arid regions. But four orders of Mammalia are represented, 
viz: Cheiroptera, Rodentia, Carnivora and Marsupialia. The first 
named order is represented by Scotophiius moris, the chocolate 
bat. These animals are very numerous. They live in hollow 
trees, and fly around in great numbers about dusk. To the natives, 
who catch and eat them, they are known by the name of “ ovolo- 
warra? They are generally caught by chopping them out of the . 
hollow trees in day time. This is the only species of bat that I 
observed in the interior. The Rodentia are represented by three 
genera and five species, viz: Hapalotis conditor, H. mitchelli, H. 
cervina, Mus vellerosus, Hydromys fulvolovatus. i 
Hàpalotus conditor is the Australian building rat. It builds 
nests, among the sandhills near the creeks, of sticks, leaves, &c. 
The nest is very roughly constructed, and to a non-observing eye 
looks like a mere bunch of dry sticks. Inside it is lined with 
soft leaves and bits of grass. The entrance is a small hole on the 
