with a bill or beak, which is not, like that of a bird, affixed to the skeleton, but is merely attached to the skin and muscles. Australia has no apes, monkeys, or baboons, and no rumi nant beasts. The comparatively few indigenous placental mammals, besides the dingo, or wild dog which, however, may have come from the islands north of this continent are of the bat tribe and of the rodent or rat tribe. There are four species of large fruit-eating bats, called flying foxes, twenty of insect-eating bats, above twenty of land-rats, and five of water-rats. The sea produces three different seals, which often ascend rivers from the coast, and can live in lagoons of fresh water ; many cetaceans, besides the " right whale " and sperm whale ; and the dugong, found on the northern shores, which yields a valuable medicinal oil. The birds of Australia in their number and variety of species (reckoned at 690) may be deemed some compensa tion for its poverty of mammals ; yet it will not stand com parison in this respect with regions of Africa and South America in the same latitudes. The black swan of West Australia was thought remarkable when discovered as belying an old Latin proverb. There is also a white eagle. The vulture is wanting. Sixty species of parrots, some of them very handsome, are found in Australia. The emu, a large bird of the order Cursores, or runners, corresponds with the African and Arabian ostrich, the rhea of South America, and the cassowary of the Moluccas and New Guinea. In New Zealand this order is represented by the apteryx, as it formerly was by the gigantic moa, the remains of which have been found likewise in Queensland. Of the same species as the birds of paradise is the graceful Mcenura superba, or lyre bird, with its tail feathers spread in the shape of a lyre. The mound-raising megapodes, the bower- building satin-birds, and several others, display peculiar habits. The honey-eaters present a great diversity of plumage. There are also many kinds of game birds, pigeons, ducks, geese, plovers, and quails. The ornithology of New South Wales and Queensland is more varied and interesting than that of the other pro vinces. As for reptiles, Australia has a few tortoises, all of one family, and not of great size. The "leathery turtle," which is herbivorous, and , yields abundance of oil, has been caught at sea off the Illawarra coast so large as 9 feet in length. The saurians or lizards are numerous, chiefly on dry sandy or rocky ground in the tropical region. The great crocodile of Queensland is 30 feet long ; there is a smaller one, 6 feet long, to be met with in the shallow lagoons of the interior. The monitor, or fork-tongued lizard, which burrows in the earth, climbs, and swims, is said to grow to a length of 8 or 9 feet. This species, and many others, do not extend to Tasmania. There are about twenty kinds of night-lizards, and many which hibernate. One species can utter a cry when pained or alarmed, and the tall-standing frilled lizard can lift its forelegs, and squat or hop like a kangaroo. There is also the Moloch horridus of South and West Australia, covered with tuber cles bearing large spines, which give it a very strange aspect. This and some other lizards have power to change their colour, not only from light to dark, but in some parts from yellow to grey or red. Dr Gray, of the British Museum, has described fifty species of Australian lizard. The snakes are reckoned at sixty-three species, of which forty-two are venomous, but only five dangerous North Queensland has many harmless pythons. There are forty or fifty different sorts of frogs ; the commonest is distin guished by its blue legs and bronze or gold back; the largest is bright green ; while the tree-frog has a loud shrill voice, always heard during rain. The Australian seas and rivers are inhabited by many fishes of the same genera as exist in the southern parts of Asia and Africa. Of those peculiar to Australian waters may be mentioned the arripis, represented by what is called among the colonists a salmon trout. A very fine fresh water fish is the Murray cod, which sometimes weighs 100 Ib ; and the golden perch, found in the same river, has rare beauty of colour. Among the sea fish, the snapper is of great value as an article of food, and its weight comes up to 50 5). This is the Pagrus unicolor, of the family of Sparidae, which includes also the bream. Its colours are beautiful, pink and red with a silvery gloss ; but the male as it grows old takes on a singular deformity of the head, with a swelling in the shape of a monstrous human-like nose. These fish are caught in numbers outside Port Jackson for the Sydney market. Two species of mackerel, differing somewhat from the European species, are also caught on the coasts. The so-called red garnet, a pretty fish, with hues of carmine and blue stripes on its head, is much esteemed for the table. The Trigla polyommata, or flying garnet, is a greater beauty, with its body of crimson and silver, and its large pectoral fins, spread like wings, of a rich green, bordered with purple, and relieved by a black and white spot. Whiting, mullet, gar-fish, rock cod, and many others known by local names, are in the lists of edible fishes belonging to New South Wales and Victoria. Much interesting and valuable information upon Australian zoology will be found in a recent essay by Mr Gerard Krefft, curator and secretary of the museum at Sydney, and in the Count de Castelnau s report on the fishes of Victoria at the International Exhibition of 1873.
Aborigines. The Papuan, Melanesian, or Australasian aborigines exhibit certain peculiarities which are not found in the African negro, to which race they otherwise present some similarity. In the Australasian the forehead is higher, the under jaw less projecting, the nose, though flat and extended compared with that of the European, is less depressed than in the African. His lips are thick, but not protuberant; and the eyes are sunken, large, and black. The colour of his skin is lighter of a dusky hue than that of the Negro. In stature he equals the average European, but tall men are rare, except in North Queens land ; his body and limbs are well shaped, strongly jointed, and highly muscular. The hind parts are not, as in the African, excessively raised ; and while the calf of the leg is deficient, the heel is straight. The natives of Papua have woolly spirally-twisted hair. Those of Tasmania, now exter minated, had the same peculiarity. But the natives of the Australian continent have straight or curly black hair. The men wear short beards and whiskers. Their mental faculties, though probably inferior to those of the Polynesian copper-coloured race, are not contemptible. They have much acuteness of perception for the relations of individual objects, but little power of generalisation. No word exists in their language for the general terms tree, bird, or fish ; yet they have invented a name for every species of vegetable and animal they know. The grammatical structure of some North Australian languages has a considerable degree of refinement. The verb presents a variety of conjugations, expressing nearly all the moods and tenses of the Greek. There is a dual, as well as a plural form in the declension of verbs, nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. The distinction of genders is not marked, except in proper names of men and women. All parts of speech, except adverbs, are declined by terminational inflec tions. There are words for the elementary numbers, one, two, three; but "four" is usually expressed by "two- two;" then "five" by "two-three," and so on. They have no idea of decimals. The number and diversity of separate languages, not mere dialects, is truly bewilder ing. Tribes of a few hundred people, living within a few
