2 
Professor McCoy has answered this question as far as concerns the 
Silurian forms he has collected in Victoria ; he has found that, with the 
exception of some new species, they are identical with the English species 
that characterise the well-known Bala Beds ; also he has not hesitated to 
admit the general specific identity of the marine fauna of the two hemispheres 
in the early times of the Falceozoic Era* 
My own observations enable me to confirm the opinion of the learned 
Director of the Melbourne Museum, as the Eeader will he able to see later 
on. I may add, as well, that I arrive at the same conclusions as far as the 
Devonian and Carboniferous Systems are concerned ; so that one can assert 
that the Marine Eauna of the entire Palaeozoic Era has been subject to the 
same general conditions. 
Then it was thought for some time that the Australian Carboniferous 
System was totally different from that of other countries. 
In fact the first fossils from this important formation brought to 
Europe by Mitchell, Darwin, and De Strzelecki, having been submitted to the 
inspection of the leading English Palaeontologists, were considered by them 
as being not only new to science but also as presenting little analogy with 
those already known from this formation. 
The works published in 1847 by McCoy and in 1849 by Dana did not 
modify this opinion much. The material that these learned palaeontologists 
had at their disposal u^as not sufficient and had not been collected with 
sufficient knowledge of the country to admit of a comparison, deductions 
from which would be beyond doubt. 
I hope to be able to prove, in the following pages, that the majority 
of Australian Carboniferous forms have, in Europe or in America, [if not 
identical representatives at any rate other forms very closely allied and 
analogous. It is a noteworthy fact that a great number of the Australian 
species attain a size to which the same species occurring in Europe and 
America rarely reach. The same remark is also applicable to some Indian 
and Chinese Carboniferous forms, which have probably developed under 
equally favourable conditions. 
To arrive at the result I have just mentioned has necessitated the 
exceptional circumstances under which I have been placed; I have been 
fortunate in having at my disposal large quantities of material collected over 
Notes sur la Zoologie et la pateontologie de Victoria, p. 34, 1866. 
