True cone-bearing trees are rare in Australia, but the allied slender-branched weeping species of Frenela (Callitris) and the very similar Casuarineæ (the she-oak, river oak, forest oak, etc.) are almost inseparable from Australian scenery. In Queensland and northern New South Wales there are, however, two remarkable true cone-bearing trees: namely, the bunya-bunya (Araucaria Bidwillii) and the Moreton Bay pine (A. Cunninghamii). There are other species of Araucaria in Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, and South America. The Australian species both afford a valuable timber, but it is not permitted to fell the bunya-bunya on the Crown lands, owing to its seeds being a valuable article of food to the aborigines.

Even so slight a sketch as this of the vegetation of Australia would be singularly imperfect without some reference to the highly peculiar grass-trees (Xanthorrhœa), which form so striking a feature in the scenery, especially in West Australia. The larger species have stout trunks surmounted by a tuft of long narrow recurved leaves, from the centre of which rise the tall, slender, shaft-like inflorescences.

Few persons knowing anything of botany have not heard of the gigantic African baobab; yet fewer probably have heard of the Australian baobab, found on the sandy plains and stony ridges from the Glenelg river to Arnhem’s Land. It is equally remarkable for the great size of its trunk, which is sometimes as much as eighty feet in circumference.

Tree-ferns are abundant and exceedingly fine in some parts of the eastern side of Australia, and there are some handsome palms in Queensland and New South Wales; but neither of these groups is represented in West Australia, unless it be quite in the north.

One more prominent feature in Australian vegetation are the large expanses of the so-called “scrub” of the colonists. This is a dense covering of low bushes, varying in composition in different districts, and named according to the predominating element.

The nearest botanical affinities of the Australian flora are with that of South Africa, though the characteristic genera, as well as the species, are invariably different in the two countries.

I am indebted to Dr. F. Kïær for the following brief note on the Australian mosses:—

The moss flora of Queensland has hitherto been comparatively but little studied. The number of varieties of foliaceous mosses known does not reach 200, while there doubtless are three or four times as many. Among those who have collected mosses in Queensland may be mentioned Miss Hellen Scott and Mrs. Amalie Dietrich, and more recently Mr. F. M. Bailey. Some of the mosses found belong to genera scattered throughout the world, e.g., Sphagnum, Dicranum, Barbula, Bryum, Neckera, Thuidium, Hypnum, etc. On the other hand genera are found that are peculiar to Australia, and finally there are forms which are characteristic of the tropical and subtropical zone.

As peculiar to Australia, we must first mention among the mosses bearing top-fruit the genus Dawsonia, which has not hitherto been found outside of this continent. This genus, of which there are three known species in Queensland, is one of the most beautiful and the largest of all mosses. It resembles a Polytrichum in appearance, and, like the latter, has a hairy cap, but around the opening its fruit is studded with a bunch of threadlike hairs, the latter attaining a number of five hundred and over.

Among other genera hitherto found only in Australia we may mention among mosses having side-fruit the Euptychium, remarkable for its leaves, which are folded very compactly, and the short-leaved Bescherellea, which abounds in Queensland. The latter genus is known in New Caledonia, and resembles a Cyrtopus, but has only a single row of teeth around the mouth.

The genus Spiridens, found in many species on the Australian islands, and also on the Sunda Isles, on the Moluccas, and on the Philippine Islands, is not represented at all in Queensland.

Among Australian forms we should also mention one or two species of Endotrichella, Orthorrhynchium, the beautiful Braithwaitea, three species of the handsome Thamniella, and a few species of the tree like branched Hypnodendron. The Ptychomnium aciculare (Brid.), common in the southern hemisphere, is also found in Queensland.

In addition to Octoblepharum albidum and Rhizogonium spiniforme, found everywhere in the tropics, there are in Queensland several species of the last-named genus.

The genus Macromitrium has many representatives in Queensland (more than ten species). Furthermore, we may here mention several species of the genera Papillaria, Hypopterygium, and Rhacopilum.

The moss flora of Queensland, little as it is known, already presents a type widely differing from the European, and the future will doubtless bring forth many interesting discoveries in this extensive colony.

Of liverworts but few (eighteen) have yet been found in Queensland, but there is a prospect that our knowledge of this interesting group in this country will be supplemented before many years.

It is evident that Australia is the country which has been least changed in the later geological time, being now in the main as it was in the early part of the tertiary period. It has also been called a land forgotten in the cretaceous period by the development of the earth. This “land of the dawning” reveals to us a corresponding primitive and peculiar animal life, as well as flora with its proteaceæ, leafless casuarinas, and acacias, which remind us of the vanished vegetation of the elder tertiary period. The major part of Australia’s mammals consists of the remarkable marsupials, which belong to the very oldest and lowest organisation of all known mammals, and which have, without doubt, survived from an earlier geological period, during which they were also found in Europe. Among birds the country has some remarkable species (Megapodidæ), the only ones in the world that do not hatch their eggs themselves but, like reptiles, bury them in earth-mounds, whose elements of fermentation produce heat and thus hatch the eggs. The two coursers, the emu and the cassowary, when we except the kiwi-kiwi of New Zealand, have more rudimentary wings than any now existing ostrich.

In the tertiary period Australia is supposed to have been much larger than it now is. It is thought to have included New Guinea and Tasmania, and possibly to have extended eastward to the Fiji Islands. According to the celebrated naturalist Mr. A. R. Wallace, this hypothesis is absolutely necessary in order to explain certain facts connected with the Australian fauna. As already stated, remains of remarkable gigantic marsupials have been found. They lived chiefly on grass, and are not supposed to have had a higher organisation than those now existing. Placental^[24] beasts of prey that could disturb the existence of these giants not having been found among the fossils, Wallace is of opinion that the latter became extinct on account of physico-geographical, and particularly climatic, changes taking place at the same time as the ice period appeared in the rest of the world. As a remarkable fact it may be mentioned that remains have recently been found of the gigantic moa (Dinornis), a genus hitherto supposed to have been found only in New Zealand.

Among the six zoological regions into which Wallace and Sclater divide the terra firma of the globe, one of the best marked and certainly the most peculiar one is the Australian. Australia and New Guinea are the largest countries in this region, which, in addition to New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific, includes the Indian Archipelago east of Borneo, Java, and Bali. The latter islands, all of which belong to the Indian-Malay region, are separated from the Australian by a belt of very deep water, where Wallace’s well-known line is found on the map. The water is shallow between all the islands south-east of this belt—Celebes, Timor, Amboina, Banda, and New Guinea—which evidently all lie on a submarine bank, and have at one time been united with Australia. There are the most striking differences between the fauna on each side of the belt. Apes, rhinoceroses, tapirs, tigers, leopards, and similar Indian and Malay animals disappear, and we enter an entirely new region, the Australian, the chief characteristic of which is that it lacks nearly all the groups of mammals found elsewhere in the world. Instead we either find the peculiar marsupials, or the mammals are entirely wanting, as is the case on most of the South Sea Islands. In ornithology the honey-eaters are especially remarkable, then we have the birds of paradise, the cassowary, and finally the kiwi-kiwi of New Zealand.

The zoological character of the region is most marked in Australia, which is rich in peculiar animal forms. As an island-continent extending from 39° to 11° S. lat., and which consequently is several times as large as the islands of the other regions added together, the country naturally has very various climates. In the southern part there is a climate like that of the countries along the Mediterranean; in the northern there is a regular season of rain; while the centre is more hot and more arid than any other part of the earth. Still, strange to say, the climatic differences are not attended by corresponding variations of the fauna, which is strikingly uniform throughout the country. Many important species are found everywhere in the continent. Generally speaking, Australia is a hot and dry country, and its flora and fauna have been developed in harmony with its physico-geographical conditions. This explains, for instance, why the tropical North Australia has not so luxurious and varied vegetations as the adjacent New Guinea, with its more humid climate. Many of the Australian mammals can subsist without water for a long time. Gould is even of opinion that the large kingfishers, whose food consists mainly of lizards and insects, never drink.

The fauna of Australia has many special forms, and occupies a peculiar, isolated position. This is most apparent among the mammals, which give to the Australian fauna its most marked feature. Imagine a continent about the size of Europe with no other mammals than marsupials, a few bats, rats, and mice. There are no apes, no beasts of prey, no hoofed animals. None of those groups are found from which our domestic animals have been developed. The only exception is the dingo, the Australian dog, but although fossil specimens have been found, it is generally supposed that the dingo was introduced by man; it does not differ much from the wild dogs of other lands. The fact that Australia at present has so many large land animals, which at one time were represented by kindred forms in Europe, shows that the country in some way or other has been united with Asia, just as Great Britain must at some time have been connected with the European continent. But the present remarkable isolation of the Australian mammals from the land fauna of the rest of the world is, as Wallace remarks, the best evidence that Australia and Asia were not united throughout the tertiary period, and it is a most characteristic fact that the only mammals which Australia has in common with the rest of the world are the flying-bats and such small mammals as could most easily be carried on floating logs, roots, and similar objects to foreign coasts. Marsupials are also found in America; but, with this exception, they now exist only in Australia and in the adjacent islands New Guinea and Tasmania, which is evidence that the latter islands were at one time united with Australia.

The marsupials are so called from their having a pouch (marsupium) for carrying the immature young. The young are born without much development, and they are at once transferred to the pouch, where they continue to grow until they are able to take care of themselves. The pouch is supported by the marsupial bones, which are equally developed in both sexes. There are also many other peculiarities in the structure of these animals, distinguishing them from the higher mammals, e.g. their teeth being quite different from those of other animals.

The large kangaroo bears a young “no larger than the little finger of a human baby, and not unlike it in form.” This helpless, naked, blind, and deaf being the mother puts in an almost inexplicable manner into the pouch with her mouth, and places it on one of the long, slender, milk-giving strings found in the pouch. Here the young remains hanging for weeks, and grows very rapidly. The mother possesses a peculiar muscle with which it is able to press milk into the mouth of the helpless little one, and the larynx of the young has a peculiar structure, so that it can breathe while it sucks, and consequently is not choked. Gradually it assumes the form of its parents, and when big enough it begins to make excursions from the pouch, which continues to enlarge with the growth of the young. These excursions become longer as the young grows larger, and thus this pouch serves both as a second womb and as a nest and home. All marsupials are propagated in this manner, but the number of young may vary from one to fourteen.

The brain of the marsupial is small and has but few convolutions, indicative of small mental development. They are the most stupid of all mammals, and indifferent in regard to all things save the wants of their stomachs. Brehm calls attention to the fact that no marsupial mother plays with her young or makes any effort to teach them.

The marsupials may differ widely in appearance, structure, and habits; they may be as large as a stag and as small as a mouse. Some move on the hind-feet alone, others on all fours; some live on the ground, others in trees, others again are able to fly. Most of them feed on grass, but some of them live on fruits, roots, and leaves; others again on meat and insects; while there are also marsupials that eat honey.

Ever since Captain Cook’s sailors in 1770 came and told him that they had seen the very devil hopping away on his hind legs in the form of an animal, the kangaroo has been inseparably associated with our ideas of Australia, the land of the kangaroo. The kangaroo (Macropus) is also the largest and most remarkable of all marsupials, and is represented by many species throughout Australia. The largest one is reddish (Macropus rufus) and is found in the interior. Of the smaller kinds we may mention the wallabies, kangaroo-rats, which are about the size of a rabbit, and the pademelon, which is easily recognised by the fact that when it runs it lets one arm drop as if it were broken. During recent years kangaroos have greatly increased in number, one of the causes being the systematic extermination of the dingoes and the decrease of the number of natives. Thus kangaroos, like their smaller relatives the wallabies and the kangaroo-rats, have become noxious animals that destroy the pastures, and the colonists are making great efforts to exterminate them. In Queensland the Government pays a premium for every such animal killed, and in this way the number of marsupials was reduced in the years 1880–1885 by six millions.

The tree-kangaroos (Dendrolagus), living in the dense scrubs of Northern Queensland, are very remarkable and very different from the other members of the family.

The phalangers (Phalangeridæ) are a large family found everywhere in Australia. They inhabit the trees, and like most of the marsupials, seek their food at night. They are usually called opossums, but are very different from the genuine opossum of America. Just as the latter are the most perfect and most intelligent of all marsupials, so the Australian opossums are the most perfectly organised of all Australian marsupials. They are, so to speak, the apes of the marsupials, in that they feed on fruit, but are able to live on insects and birds’ eggs; have a prehensile tail and a movable thumb, which almost converts their feet into hands.

Closely related to the latter are the flying-squirrels (Petaurus) which are strikingly like those in India. The smallest one of this family, the beautiful Acrobates pygmæus, is a perfect wonder of elegance and graceful movement. Though not larger than a little mouse, still it flies through the air as skilfully as the larger species. It frequently becomes the prey of domestic cats.

A transition between the kangaroos and the phalangers is found in the marsupial bear (Phascolarctus), while the rodents are represented by the large, plump wombat (Phascolomys).

The family Dasyuridæ are carnivorous. The colonist usually names them after animals of the old world, “marsupial cat,” “marsupial tiger,” “marsupial wolf,” etc. All these marsupial beasts of prey are very rapacious, and one or two of them are quite equal to the martens and weasels in this respect. The marsupial wolf (Thylacinus) and the marsupial devil (Sarcophilus) in Tasmania are the most ferocious and most powerful of all the Australian animals, and do great damage among the sheep. The former is, however, wellnigh exterminated. Native cats (Dasyurus geoffroyi) are numerous everywhere, and are hated by the colonists, because they attack the poultry. Near Mount Elephant, in Victoria, five hundred of them were killed in one night by two poisoned sheep carcasses. There had long been a drought, so that the animals had congregated in the only place where water was to be found.

We now come to the Monotremata, the lowest group of all mammals. They have the marsupial bones, but no pouch, and they are destitute of teeth. Of this remarkable family there are only two genera, the duck-billed platypus and the spiny ant-eater.

The duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is easily recognised by its horny jaws, which have a striking resemblance to the bill of a duck. The animal is about fifteen inches long, and the body, which is covered with close brown hair, is broad, flat, and somewhat like that of a reptile. The feet are short and the toes are webbed. During the daytime the ornithorhynchus sleeps in deep burrows dug in the banks of rivers. It is common in the southern and eastern part of Australia, and is also found in Tasmania.

The spiny ant-eater (Echidna) resembles our porcupine in appearance and size, has quills like it, and can roll itself into a ball. The toes are not webbed, but the animal is a very good swimmer. It feeds on ants and insects, and, like other ant-eaters, has a long, slender tongue, which has a secretion of a sticky substance. It is a most powerful animal, and can disappear so rapidly in loose earth or sand that it seems to sink into the ground. Its flesh is very fat, and is considered a great delicacy by the blacks. On Herbert river, where the ant-eater is called gombian, the natives hunt it with the help of tamed dingoes.

These mammals, the two most remarkable ones on the globe, reveal a wonderful relationship to the lower vertebrates, reptiles and birds. Thus we find that the front extremities are fastened to the breast-bone by a highly developed coracoid and an epicoracoid, as in the case of lizards. This does not occur in any other mammal. Their skulls, like those of birds, have no visible sutures whatever.

The most remarkable fact, however, is that these animals do not bear living young, but lay eggs. The latter contain a large yolk, and when hatched the young are suckled by the mother.

The stages of development of the eggs are different from those of all other mammals, and resemble to a great extent those of reptiles and birds. As the eggs are meroblastic,^[25] these animals seem to be even more closely related to birds and reptiles than to the mammals.

The eggs lying in the ovaries are ⅛ of an inch in diameter, possibly even more, and they certainly are the largest eggs produced by mammals. In a human being and in the higher mammals the egg averages ¹⁄₁₂₅ of an inch in diameter.

The young seem to require a long time to arrive at maturity. They are hatched small, blind, and naked, and their mouths have not at first the form of a beak, but are thick, round, soft, and well adapted to receive the milk, which is strained through the lacteal glands, for there are no nipples. As these animals have no pouch (the ant-eater has a rudimentary one in the form of a crease in the skin while it nurses its young), the young remain in the nest, where the mother suckles them.

Though the ornithology of Australia is not so isolated in its character as the mammals are, still its birds are very remarkable, and have almost as many points of interest. We here find eagles, hawks, thrushes, swallows, fly-catchers, sea-gulls, ducks, etc., though of other species than those to which we are accustomed; but we are astonished that vultures and woodpeckers, which exist in all other parts of the world, are wholly wanting.

The honey-eaters (Meliphagidæ), so well adapted to the circumstances of the country, are very remarkable. As the trees and bushes of Australia have a great wealth of flowers, but are wanting in juicy fruits, many of its birds find their food in the flowers, inhabiting the trees and bushes, particularly gum-trees and banksias, and rarely coming down on the ground to seek food. These characteristic birds, of which there are no less than 200 species, remind us by their mode of life of the American humming-birds; still they are very different from the latter. The largest are of the size of a small dove, but much more slender. They are strong lively birds, which with their powerful feet cling fast to the branches, almost like titmice, while they suck the flowers, and their tongue ends in a brush, so that they can easily lick up the honey and the honey-eating insects. Even some of the parrots, the so-called brush-tongued (Trichoglossidæ), live on honey and pollen, and are peculiar to Australia.

The strange habits of many of the Australian birds have already been described, e.g. the play-houses built by the æsthetic bower-birds, and the three species which do not themselves hatch their eggs, like the reptiles, but leave the hatching to be done by artificial heat. The latter belong to the family of Megapodidæ, a group which receives its name from the fact that their feet and claws are very large and powerful, and consequently well adapted to building the large mounds in which the eggs are laid.

It is a strange fact that the kingfishers found everywhere in the world, and the equally cosmopolitan pigeons, should be so numerous in Australia. Among the former are the wonderful laughing jackasses (Dacelo) whose voice is unlike that of any other bird. In Australia the pigeons attain the highest development both as to wealth of species and brilliancy of plumage. Some of them even have a crest on the top of the head, a very rare ornament for this family. The extraordinary development of these defenceless birds indicates that they have but few enemies in Australia. Wallace gives as the reason for their great numbers the total absence of apes, cats, weasels, and other animals that live in trees and that eat the eggs and the young of birds, while the very green colour of these birds conceals them from birds of prey, their only foes. On the plains in the interior of Queensland countless numbers of pigeons are seen, but of modest-coloured plumage, to protect them in this open country.

Many of the Australian birds are distinguished for their brilliant plumage, and in this respect they easily rank with the humming-birds of America and with the trogons and parrots of India. Thus we have the elegant little wrens whose leading colours are azure blue and scarlet-red; the yellow and velvety black regent-bird (Sericulus melinus); and the metallic glittering rifle-bird (Ptilorhis victoriæ); and finally, the finches, that have a combination of colours the like of which is to be found only in butterflies. Among the many parrots, which include such strange forms as the white and the black cockatoos, there are some which are unique in the beauty of their colours. So remarkable a decoration as the tail of the lyre-bird (Menura) is found nowhere else in the world of birds.

The stately emu, which together with the cassowary represents the ostrich family in Australia, is still numerous in the open country. The cassowary, on the other hand, which is found only in the north-eastern tropical part, is rare, and will doubtless soon become extinct as civilisation gradually advances and clears the scrubs.

Ducks, geese, and other swimming birds are numerous, and afford excellent sport, but as they are much sought by sportsmen, the colonies have passed laws to protect them during a certain season of the year. Among the geese which have only half-webbed toes, the most common is the “black and white” (Anseranas melanoleuca). These beautiful birds gather in large flocks, but as civilisation advances they are gradually decreasing in number. At present they are numerous only in Northern Queensland, where the flocks are so large and dense that the natives can easily kill them with their spears. They were of great value to Leichhardt on his overland expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

It is a remarkable fact that some species of Australian birds without any apparent reason suddenly leave the district where they have had their habitat for years, and settle somewhere else, to disappear again after a few years. Gould gives several examples of this. A squatter whom I knew told me that the pelicans several years ago quite unexpectedly made their appearance on Darling river in New South Wales, 400 miles from the coast. Neither the whites nor the blacks had ever seen them there before. They settled down near a lake called Dry Lagoon and bred there. Meanwhile the lagoon dried up as usual, and the pelicans were obliged to bring fish for their young from a lake two miles away. As soon as the young became large enough they were transferred to the latter lake, the whole colony requiring three weeks for the journey. As a rule the pelicans build their nests on islands near the coast.

Australia has no less than 700 species of birds; of these probably 600 are found in Queensland alone, and this must be said to be a great wealth of species. Europe, which is somewhat larger and has been incomparably much more thoroughly explored, has only about 500 species.

Reptiles, amphibious animals, and fishes are well represented in Australia, and among them are some of great interest.

Lizards are found everywhere, but it is a strange fact that, as in the case of plants, some species are found in West Australia that are peculiar to this district and have never been observed outside of it. That characteristic forms are not wanting is shown by the frilled-lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii) represented at the beginning of this chapter. Around its neck it has a large, loose skin which it is able to raise into a Queen Elizabeth ruff. Unlike all other lizards, this animal assumes in sitting the same posture as a kangaroo, and when startled it makes, like them, long jumps five to six feet high before it begins to run.

Although Viperidæ and Crotalidæ, which elsewhere are the most venomous families of snakes, are not found in Australia, still scarcely any other part of the globe has so many venomous serpents in comparison with the number of those that are harmless. Here, as elsewhere, the number of snakes increase with the heat of the climate, so that Tasmania has only three species, while Queensland can show fifty, and among the latter several large harmless pythons, which the natives are fond of eating. Water-snakes abound along the coasts of tropical Australia, and are all venomous.

Amphibious animals with tails (salamanders) are not found. On the other hand, frogs are plentiful. They have a remarkable faculty for accommodating themselves to all the dry climatic conditions of the country. In South Australia a drought once lasted for twenty-six months. The country was transformed into a desert, and life was not to be seen. Sheep and cattle had perished, and so had the marsupials. Suddenly rain poured down. The long drought was at an end; and six hours after the storm had begun the rain was welcomed by the powerful voices of the frogs. Flies afterward came in great numbers, and then bats appeared in countless swarms. On my travels in Western Queensland I heard the people on Diamantina river speak of a species of large frog which after rain buried themselves about six inches down in the ground, and remained there during the dry season. These frogs contain much water, a fact known to the natives, who dig them up in the dry season and quench their thirst by squeezing the water out of them. The white population also sometimes resort to these frogs for water. They know the little mounds, which resemble mole-hills, under which the frogs lie hid, and dig them out. According to report, such a frog contains about a wine-glassful of “clear, sweet water.”

The colonists of Australia have a fondness for giving familiar names to Australian animals. Thus they have called a large fish found in some of the rivers of Central Queensland burnett salmon. This fish, which the natives call barramunda, is, however, no salmon, for both salmon and carp are entirely wanting in Australia. But its size and its fat and delicate-tasting flesh reminded the people of the salmon, and it had long been eagerly sought as food both by whites and blacks, when in 1870 the scientific world became acquainted with it, and discovered in it a remarkable survival of the prehistoric past. Fossil teeth of this fish, now known as Ceratodus forsteri, had long ago been found in the Trias and Jura formations in Europe, India, and America, but the animal was of course thought to be extinct, like the Iguanodon or Dinotherium. Like the Protopterus from Africa and the Lepidosiren from the Amazon river, it belongs to the very ancient and remarkable lung-fish (Dipnoi), which, as the name indicates, has both gills and lungs. Ceratodus forsteri has only one lung, and can breathe with it alone, or with the gills alone, or with both at the same time, and therefore it leaves the water in the night and goes ashore, where it eats grass and leaves, while in the daytime it may be seen sunning itself on logs lying out of the water. This “living fossil,” which attains a length of six feet, thus forms a remarkable connecting link between fishes and reptiles.

While Australia is poor in regard to butterflies, it has many beautiful beetles, e.g. the family Buprestidæ. The lower animal life is peculiar, but still comparatively little known.

Professor G. O. Sars, of Christiania, has made some exceedingly interesting experiments, whereby he has succeeded in hatching artificially and domesticating in his aquarium various Australian fresh-water Entomostraca. The materials for these experiments consisted of small quantities of mud taken from the bottom of lakes and small fresh-water ponds near Rockhampton. After being thoroughly dried, I forwarded this mud to Christiania. The specimens sent looked on their arrival like small masses of rock, and were so hard that they could scarcely be broken with a hammer. Nevertheless they contained living germs in the form of eggs, which had been deposited by entomostraca living in the waters in question. In most cases these eggs proved to be encased in peculiar capsules, which frequently bore a startling resemblance to bean-pods, and in some of the specimens they were found in great numbers. By softening the mud and by a suitable preparation in aquaria, Professor Sars succeeded not only in producing perfectly developed individuals, but also in getting them to propagate in the aquaria, and thus it became possible to make very exhaustive investigations in regard to a portion of Australia’s fauna hitherto almost entirely unknown. One of the most striking forms hatched in this manner is the little Daphnia called D. lumholtzii.

In addition to this, nine others have been described by Professor Sars in two treatises: “On some Australian Cladocera raised from dried mud,” Christiania Videnskabs-selskabs Forhandlinger, 1885; and “Additional Notes on Australian Cladocera,” Christiania Videnskabs-selskabs Forhandlinger, 1888. On the same subject he has recently published a treatise: “On Cyclestheria hislopi (Baird), a new generic type of bivalve Phyllopoda, Christiania Videnskabs-selskabs Forhandlinger, 1887,” in which he has described a most interesting animal form, which the author hatched in the same manner, and observed through several generations. This animal has been noted heretofore in specimens from India and Ceylon, but very imperfectly, and hence mistakes have been made in regard to its systematic position, and no knowledge was obtained as to its interesting habits and life. It belongs to the so-called shell-covered phyllopoda, of which only a limited number of species have hitherto been known. One of its chief characteristics is the fact that it is enclosed in a transparent double shell, which has a deceptive likeness to a clam-shell. The anatomical examination of the animal has demonstrated that it cannot be classified with any of the known genera, but forms the type for a new one, to which the name cyclestheria has been affixed. In regard to propagation and development, this form differs widely from all the phyllopoda heretofore known. Contrary to the general rule, the eggs are developed within the shell of the mother animal, and this development is direct, not through any metamorphosis, as is the case with the other known Phyllopoda. In his treatise Professor Sars has given the whole history of the development of this animal, which abounds in interesting facts.

Finally, I may add that the results obtained by these hatchings are already so important that they supply materials for many future treatises, and that many lower fresh-water animals, not only entomostraca, but also forms belonging to totally different departments of zoology, e.g. Bryozoæ, have in this way been thoroughly examined and studied in a living condition.