676 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVIII. 



chewink was with him. They departed together, and three days 



later I saw the sparrow near the old barn // was evide7it x\\zX. the 



chewink had piloted him three-fourths of a mile to his friends 



How did the chewink know where to take the sparrow ? " How 

 indeed? The italics are the reviewer's and this passage is com- 

 mended to the critic who could say that the book never went 

 "beyond assured facts." When we add that the illustrations are 

 in keeping with the text we have done all that is possible to put the 

 public on their guard against this book. 



R. H. 



The Sino-Australian Continent.— The existence of this continent, 

 first assumed by Neumayr for the Jurassic period, and which was 

 accepted by various subsequent writers for the Cretaceous, and 

 upward in the geological scale to the beginning of the Tertiary, 

 apparently needs restriction with regard to its duration. It now is 

 rendered more or less probable that it was not present at all in the 

 Jurassic period. Lately G. Boehm^ has demonstrated that, in the 

 region of the Moluccas, Mesozoic marine deposits of European type 

 are largely developed, and are chiefly represented by various horizons 

 of the Jurassic series. Boehm draws the conclusion, "it becomes 

 apparent that a Sino-Australian Jurassic continent, as conceived by 

 Neumayr, did not exist." 



On the other side, deposits of Cretaceous age are absent or scarce 

 in this region, so that this old continent might have existed at least 

 during a part of the Cretaceous period. Bcehm does not discuss 

 this question, but we must bear in mind that zoogeographical facts 

 positively demand a connection of Australia with eastern Asia, and 

 all evidence tends to show (see H. von Ihering, C. Hadley. H. A. 

 Pilsbry, A. E. Ortmann, M. Weber) that this connection was a broad 

 and important one in pre-Tertiary times, while, during the Tertiary, 

 It became more irregular, and was subject to many changes which 

 amounted frequently to complete interruption, which latter condition 

 pic\ail,s at present. The restriction of the Sino-Australian continent 

 to a certaui part of the Cretaceous times consequently would meet 

 the postulates both of geology and zoogeography. 



A. E. O. 



