Page:Mammals of Australia (Gould), introduction.djvu/40

 and are not found in the other; and it is not often that even the great Cetaceans occur in both. Neither do the Seals: the equatorial region separates them most completely; that is, no species is common alike to the north and the south. I do not consider that either the Australian Cetacea or Phocidæ have been well made out, and this certainly is the part of the mammalian fauna of that country of which we know the least. I have omitted the former altogether, but it will be seen that I have figured two of the latter; these constitute two genera (Stenorhynchus and Arctocephalus); they both inhabit the shores and rocky islands of the southern portion of Australia, while the Dugong (Halicore australis) is, as far as I am aware, a native of the east coast only.

Whether the Canis Dingo be really indigenous, or has at some very remote period followed man in his migrations, is a question on which naturalists are at variance. For my own part, I am inclined to the latter theory, as being the most philosophic mode of accounting for its presence there. That Man is the latest visitant to the soil of Australia there can be little doubt: the country is far too sparsely provided with fruits and other substances necessary for his existence to favour a contrary hypothesis.

In the following list of the Australian Mammals I shall refer to the volumes in which they are contained and to the plates on which they are respectively figured, and shall moreover give any additional information I may have acquired respecting them, together with an account of the new species which have been described by other writers, but which, from my not having been able to see examples, I have not figured.