Page:Mammals of Australia (Gould), introduction.djvu/35

 to a separate and special end and purpose—an end and a purpose which cannot be seen to advantage in any but a comparatively undisturbed country like Australia—a part of the world's surface still in maiden dress, but the charms of which will ere long be ruffled and their true character no longer seen! Those charms will not long survive the intrusion of the stockholder, the farmer, and the miner, each vying with the other to obliterate that which is so pleasing to every naturalist; and fortunate do I consider the circumstances which induced me to visit the country while so much of it remained in its primitive state.

I must revert to the Kangaroos; for it will be necessary to point out the situations affected by the various genera. In the body of the work three species of true Macropi are figured, and others are described, but not represented. These are all inhabitants of the southern districts of Australia and Van Diemen's Land. To say that no true Macropus, as the genus is now restricted, would be found in Northern Australia would be somewhat unwarrantable; at the same time, I have never seen an example from thence. The genus Osphranter, on the other hand, the members of which, as has been before stated, are always found in rocky situations, have their representatives in the north as well as in the south, but they are not found in Van Diemen's Land. The splendid ''0. rufus'' is an animal of the interior, and frequents the plains more than any other species of its genus. At present, the back settlements of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia are the only countries whence I have seen specimens. The great Black Wallaroo (O. robustus) forms its numerous runs among the rocks, and on the summits of mountains bordering the rivers Mokai and Gwydyr. The O. Parryi ranges over the rocky districts of the headwater's of the Clarence and adjacent rivers, while the ''0. antilopinus'' is as yet only known in the Cobourg Peninsula.

The smaller Petrogalæ differ from all the other Kangaroos, both in the form of their feet and the structure of their brushy