64 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
and gum contained in their barks, while in Australia the 
bark is stripped off the trees where they grow under natural 
conditions and used by the tanners. In the western districts 
of New South Wales the Mulga (A. aneura) is prized 
very much by stockowners, as it furnishes valuable food for 
their stock. 
In Europe several species receive special attention under 
hothouse and greenhouse culture, where they are grown as 
ornamental shrubs, and quite recently it was reported that — 
hybrids have been produced as the result of hybridization be- 
tween 4A. podalyrucfolia and A. dealbata and other species, 
the former being the mother plant of the hybrids. 
NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
(By T. Steel, F.L.S.) 
Tue Australasian region is, from a biological point of view, 
one of the most: interesting in the whole world. A great 
number of the plants and animals occurring in this region, 
are found nowhere else, and, asa matter of fact, are survivals 
from a former geological period. In other parts of the world 
we find fossil remains of organisms corresponding to what con- 
stitute the living fauna and flora of Australia. Naturally 
this peculiarity has attracted a great deal of attention from 
naturalists, for the study of what one writer has termed the 
“‘living fossils’? of Australia, is of enormous assistance In un- 
ravelling the intricate problems involved in the life-history of 
existing organisms and in tracing the nature and relationship 
of fossil remains occurring in other parts of the world. 
Briefly, the reason for the existence of this state of mat- 
ters in Australasia may be put in the one word—isolation. 
Very early in its history, Australia, with its girdling islands, 
was cut off by a barrier of ocean from the mainland of Asia, 
and so was left to develop in its own way. The large active 
carnivorous animals, such as the tiger, the leopard, etc., never 
got a footing here, and for this reason the comparatively 
helpless marsupial was enabled to attain a degree of develop- 
ment which would otherwise have been impossible, and to be- 
come in fact the dominant feature of Australian animal life. 
The influences brought to bear on the development of the 
plants and animals of the Australian region through the mi- 
gration of derizens of Africa and South America by way of 
a former southern bridging continent, does not lie within the 
scope of this paper, but it forms a most interesting story. 
To-night it is my pur'pose to take a few characteristic Aus- 
tralian and New Zealand creatures, and to endeavour to give 
