Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/445

Rh islands which belong to its Indian division these Australian birds have no place.

On passing from the island of Bali to that of Lombok, we cross the division between the two. "In Bali," he tells us, "we have barbets, fruit-thrushes, and woodpeckers, while in Lombok these are seen no more; but we have abundance of cockatoos, honey-suckers, and brush-turkeys, which are equally unknown in Bali, or any island farther west."

As to our second point, then—the geographical relations of the kangaroo—we may say that the kangaroo is one of an order of animals confined to the Australian region and America, the great bulk of which order, including the kangaroo's own family, is strictly confined to the Australian region. We may further add that in the Australian region ordinary beasts (Monodelphia) are entirely absent, save some bats and a rat or two, and the wild-dog or dingo, which was probably introduced there by man himself.

There only remains, then, for us to inquire, lastly, what relations with past time may be found to exist on the part of the kangaroo's order or of the kangaroo itself. Now, in fact, these relations are of considerable interest. I have spoken of Australia as, what in one sense it certainly is, the newest world, and yet the oldest world would, in truth, be an apter title for the Australian region.

In these days we hear much of "survivals," as the two buttons behind our frock-coats are "survivals" of the extinct sword-belt they once supported, and the "Oh, yes! oh, yes! oh, yes!" of the town-crier is a "survival" of the former legal and courtly predominance of the French language among us. "Well, in Australia we have to-day a magnificent case of zoölogical survival on the largest scale. There, as has already been said, we find living the little Myrmecobius, which represents before our eyes a creature living in the flesh to-day, which is like other creatures which once lived here in England, and which have left their relics in the Stonesfield oolite, the deposition of which is separated from our own age by an abyss of past time not to be expressed by thousands of years, but only to be indicated in geological language as the Mesozoic period—the middle of the secondary rocks.

But Australia presents us with a yet more interesting case of "survival." Certain fish-teeth had from time to time been found in deposits of oolitic and triassic date, and the unknown creature to which they once belonged had received the name of Ceratodus. Only five years ago this animal, supposed to have been extinct for untold ages, was found still living in Queensland, where it goes by the name of "flat-head." It is a fish of somewhat amphibious habits, as at night it leaves the brackish streams it inhabits, and wanders among the reeds and rushes of the adjacent flats. The anatomy of this animal has been carefully described for us by Dr. Günther.

We have, then, in Australia what may be termed a triassic land,