CHAP. XIII.] 
THE AUSTRALIAN REGION. 
307 
while a much smaller number are confined to the East and 
South-East, or to the North. 
Among the fresh-water turtles of the family Chelydidse 
there are three peculiar genera — Chelodina, Chelemys , and Elseya , 
all from Australia. 
Amphibia. — No tailed amphibians are known from the whole 
region, but no less than eleven of the families of tail-less Batra- 
chians (toads and frogs) are known to inhabit some part or 
other of it. A peculiar family (Xenorhinidse), consisting of 
a single species, is found in New Guinea; the true toads 
(Bufonidee) are only represented by a single species of a pecu- 
liar genus in Australia, and by a Bufo in Celebes. Nine of the 
families are represented in Australia itself, and the following 
genera are peculiar to it : — Pseudophryne (Phryniscidae), Pachy - 
batrachus , and Chelydobatrachus (Engystomydfe) ; Helioporus 
(Alytidse) ; Pelodyras and Ckirodyras (Pelodryadae) ; A T otaden 
(Bufonidae). 
Fresh-water Fish. — There is only one peculiar family of fresh- 
water fishes in this region — the Gadopsidae — represented by a 
single genus and species. The other species of Australia belong 
to the families Trachinidje, Atherinidse, Mugillidae, Silurida > , 
Homalopterae, Haplochitonidae, Galaxida?, Osteoglossidie, Sym- 
branehidae, and Sirenoidei ; most of the genera being peculiar. 
The large and widely-distributed families, Cyprinodontidae and 
Cyprinidae, are absent. The most remarkable fish is the recently 
discovered Ceratodus, allied to the Lepidosiren of Tropical 
America, and Protopterm of Tropical Africa, the three species 
constituting the Sub-class Dipnoi, remains of which have been 
found fossil in the Triassic formation. 
Summary of Australian Vertebrata.—ln order to complete 
our general sketch of Australian zoology, and to afford materials 
for comparison with other regions, we will here summarize the 
distribution of Vertebrata in the entire Australian region, as 
given in detail in the tables at the end of this chapter. When 
an undoubted Oriental family or genus extends to Celebes only 
we do not count it as belonging to the Australian region, that 
island being so very anomalous and intermediate in character. 
