200 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



for me was annihilated, and the imposing kingdom of man 

 shrunk indeed to a little measure." 



The Great Lake possesses two abundant crustaceans — Par- 

 anaspides lacustris (a new genus and species discovered by Mr. 

 Smith) and Phreatoicus spinosus, which stand " in somewhat the 

 same relation to the other Crustacea as the Platypus does to 

 ordinary mammals " ; while in the same water, anglers may be in- 

 terested to learn, there are found Trout which have been captured 

 scaling twenty-five pounds. These, however, are considered by 

 the author as certainly the English Brown Trout (introduced 

 in 1864), attaining these gigantic proportions by the absence of 

 predatory fish such as Pike, and by the superabundance of 

 ground food. It seems, however, that they have increased in 

 size with a diminution in pluck, for " they seldom show any 

 great fight ; indeed, the large fish which I saw near the bank of 

 the Shannon were so sluggish that one could poke them with a 

 stick before they would make off." 



Mr. Smith naturally could not ignore the peculiar anthro- 

 pology of Tasmania and its extinct aborigines ; the unfortunate 

 Truganini, the last of the true Tasmanians, died in 1876, and 

 her skeleton is preserved in the Museum at Hobart. An excellent 

 plate illustrating crania preserved in the University Museum, 

 Oxford, shows the dissimilarity of those from Tasmania to those 

 of Australia, and their affinities with those from New Guinea 

 and the Andamans. These last affinities are further pronounced 

 by their woolly or "negritic " hair. 



Other natural features are lost besides that of man ; the 

 vegetation in places is considerably modified, as our author 

 bears witness when he speaks of the bush " which must have 

 clothed Mount Wellington before that mountain was partially 

 tamed by fires and the domesticating hand of man." 



This book is well illustrated, and is a tale told by a naturalist 

 in a very excellent manner. 



