IS 
ANIMALS. 
The indigenous mammals of Australia are, with the exception 
of certain rodents and bats, the dingo, whales and seals, all 
marsupials, descendants of a type which in most other parts 
of the world has long been replaced by — or rather perhaps, 
modified into — other forms. In fact, these very exceptions 
are almost certainly not autochthonous, but represent exotic 
invasions, the rats and water-rats arriving for instance on logs 
or in canoes from neighbouring lands ; the dingo almost certainly 
coming with man, either with the original black man, who is 
also an outside invader, or with stray Malays and other folk 
touching on our northern shores ; the bats and sea-animals have, 
of course, obvious means by which they could reach Australia. 
These now indigenous rodents have, however, from their long 
sojourn in Australia, struck a mean with its other inhabitants 
and now play little or no part in altering the fauna numerically 
or qualitatively. The dingo, likewise, and the aboriginal, though 
taking their toll of kangaroo and opossum, have for long not 
materially altered the balance of nature. 
But with the white man came his flocks and herds, his 
horses and asses, protected with peculiar care and requiring 
abundant pasturage. The settlers hewed the forest and tilled 
the soil and killed the native animals that fed upon the herbage 
as well as driving back mile by mile the timid ones. Cattie, 
sheep and horses are, in fact, a carefully fostered exotic invasion, 
rapidly, under man’s careful hand, entirely replacing the larger 
native animals, though, doubtless, if left to their own accord, 
they would have made far less impression. The large number of 
buffaloes in the Northern Territory, however, show that, even 
when entirely wild and dependant on their preservation from 
extinction to their own resources only, some species of ruminants 
can multiply, in suitable areas, to a very large extent. The same 
is evidenced in many of the large cattle stations in our northern 
parts, where the animals are left almost entirely to themselves 
and are practically wild. 
But, like Dean Swift’s lesser fleas on little fleas, these very 
animals have brought with them exotic diseases, some of which, 
with timely forethought, might perhaps have been prevented 
from gaining a foothold. If the utmost care had been taken in 
the first instance and if knowledge in those days had been as ad- 
vanced as it is now, we might have been to-day free from tuber- 
culosis in cattle, from swine-fever, from the tick-fever or red- 
water of cattle and the tick disease of fowls, from anthrax, etc. 
We have, so far, by quarantine and careful examinations, pre- 
vented surra from gaining a hold, as well as rabies (hydrophobia), 
foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, rinderpest and various other 
less-known animal diseases. Had buffaloes not been introduced 
into Northern Australia, we would have been now free from tick 
