APPENDIX
I
AN OUTLINE OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
The history of Australia illustrates in broad outlines how a continent inhabited by a most primitive race of men becomes known to the Europeans, how the latter colonise the country and drive the natives before them, and how the new community is organised and developed. Thus the subject may be divided into three chapters—(1) The condition before the discovery; (2) the story of the discovery; and (3) the story of the colonisation.
The Condition before the European Discovery
The degree of culture attained by the Australian aborigines when they first came in contact with the Europeans was not a high one. We find a race living in small tribes, without any social organisation, always moving from one place to another, living in huts hurriedly made of leaves or bark; almost naked; destitute of implements of metal, destitute of perforated stone implements, destitute of bows and arrows; having miserable boats, or none at all; having no other domestic animals than the semi-wild dingo, and having no knowledge of agriculture. The development which preceded this stage of civilisation must be looked for in the very infancy of human culture, where we have but little light to show the way. Nor is any special value to be attached to peculiar customs which this people may have in common with other races similarly situated. Circumcision, tattooing, exogamy, and sorcery are found in every part of the globe, but for none of these have we been able to show a common origin. Nor has the science of philology hitherto been able to connect the prehistoric ages of Australia with the culture of the rest of the world, though efforts have been made to show linguistic resemblances both with the Dekkan races and more recently with the negroes of Africa. The archæological investigations are confined to enormous “middens” or refuse heaps. One science remains, viz. comparative anthropology; but even this is not able to give a satisfactory answer, for the Australian aborigines form a group by themselves without any marked similarity to any other races. A few anthropological correspondences have led to comparisons with the Papuans, who geographically are their nearest neighbours.
There are in like manner faint traces pointing to the north and north-east, when we seek the source of the earliest culture of Australia. A later current from north-east to south-west has been suggested, but cannot be made to serve as the basis of any reliable hypothesis. It has been shown that weapons (the bow), and boats, and houses, and physical development reveal progress as the York peninsula is approached, and the influence of Malays and Papuans can be definitely pointed out. But all this bears the stamp of modern times, and must be the result of communications in a very recent period. The one thing certain is that the Australian race must have originated ages ago.
Investigation, which shows how completely Australia has been cut off from external influence, gives the best answer to the question why the development of the blacks has made so little progress, for the development of the world is found to be dependent on the intercourse between different races, on the conflicts between them, and on the struggle for existence thus caused.
The very nature of the country has helped to keep the people from making progress. In the first place there are but few inlets of the sea, and in the next place there are two other circumstances which only need to be pointed out to be appreciated. There are no ruminating animals, and grain is very rare. The transition from the most primitive life to that of the herdsman was therefore impossible, and this common door to a higher culture was closed. On the other hand, there was but little inducement to become agricultural, though the wild rice found in the northern part of South Australia has been used as food. Besides the climatic conditions, the long droughts—sometimes lasting for years in the interior of the country—were a decided obstacle to agriculture, even if there had been grain that could bear them better than rice. Finally, it should be added that the natural products are usually so abundant that it is comparatively easy to subsist without labour.
The fact is, at all events, that the great discovery on which all higher civilisation is based, viz. agriculture, had not been made in Australia at the time when it was colonised by Europeans.
There could be no doubt about the result when the aborigines and the Europeans met. The difference was so great that assimilation was impossible. The only vocations open to the aborigines in the new Australian community were those of the herdsman and policeman. The latter of these was of no advantage to the natives. The first English colonists were mainly banished criminals, reckless people a fact that gave the conflict between the two races the character of a war of extermination from the very outset, and in this warfare the native police has contributed much toward the destruction of the aborigines.
It is difficult to estimate the number of aborigines in Australia at the time when the European colonisation began. Natives, or traces of them, were met everywhere. Sturt relates that he met about 4000 in the course of a few days. We probably are not wide of the mark when we assume that fifty years ago there were about 200,000 natives in Australia; their number is now estimated at about 60,000.
The world is familiar with the systematic cruelty with which the Tasmanians were exterminated. In 1872 occurred the death of the last representative of a people which numbered about 5000 souls at the time of the founding of the colony in 1803. Many were killed in wars, many were even hunted out of the woods and destroyed. A large number of them were transported to the islands in Bass Strait, where death and ruin soon overtook them. The regular hunting and shooting of the natives in the early days of Queensland suggests the question, whether the coming of the new settlers deserved the name of the “advent of civilisation.”
History of the Discovery
Australia was the last continent discovered by the European, a fact easily explained by its situation. In the age of the great discoveries, navigators were seeking a way to India, and whether they chose to go by the way of the Cape of Good Hope or by the Straits of Magellan, in either case the route was far to the north of Australia. The navigators also seem to have kept as far to the north as possible. Still, a very long time cannot have passed ere sailors came in sight of the Australian coast. Strange to say, it is not known with certainty who was the first discoverer of this great continent. Some old maps seem to show that the Portuguese were aware of the existence of a large country south of Java before the year 1545, viz. “Great Java.” On these maps are found coral reefs, rivers, promontories, etc., and a number of names. It is, however, difficult to determine how far these maps may be based on the old purely theoretical assumption that there was a large terra australis incognita, to give equilibrium to the earth and balance the northern hemisphere.
Ere long the Spanish, the chief rivals of the Portuguese, also presented their claims. By the decision of Pope Alexander II, who acted as arbitrator, the Spanish were permitted to develop their sway only westward of Europe, while all to the east was left to the Portuguese. The conflict which then arose in regard to the Moluccas may explain why both parties were silent in regard to the great country they may have discovered south of the boundary.
COOK’S MONUMENT IN SYDNEY.
At all events, the first Australian discoveries of which we have perfectly reliable accounts were not made before the beginning of the seventeenth century. We first come across the Dutch, who during their war of independence attempted to conquer the rich colonies of their enemies—the Spanish and the Portuguese. In connection with this we obtain the following reliable dates: in 1601 the Portuguese De Eridia landed on the north-west coast from the west; in 1606 the Spaniard Torres passed from the east through the straits named after him; and subsequently a Dutch ship called Duyfhen sailed along the coast toward Cape York. From this time the Dutch carry on nearly all the explorations. It would take us beyond our present limits to present the details of this gradual discovery, from the Dutch headquarters in Java, or on their route to East India, a route which they had to lay south of that of the Portuguese. In 1627 Peter Nuyts entered the great Australian bay from the west. In 1642 Tasman gained the south point of that country, which he called Van Diemen’s Land. It is not easy now to decide whether his reasons for regarding the latter as the southern point of a large continent were based on old theories or on more recent observations.
The English, the nation which was destined to control the development of Australia, did not make their appearance before 1688, when the freebooter Dampier explored the west coast. This happened one hundred years before the first colonies—the centenary of which has been recently celebrated—were planted, in 1788.
It was a long time before anybody made any decided effort to take possession of the country, and for this delay there were many reasons. The power of the Spanish was exhausted, and so was that of Portugal, while the victorious Dutch were fully occupied with their new rich provinces. To this must be added that all descriptions of Australia represented the continent as barren and without water to drink, and its natives as poor and savage. Nor did the coasts that had been seen present any very inviting aspect. There are but few harbours on the west and south coasts, and on the north-east side are dangerous coral reefs. The wrong side of Australia had been seen, and it was absurd to prefer this country to the Spice Island or America.
It is interesting to note that it was a scientific expedition which first led to the colonisation of the country. In 1768 Captain Cook carried an astronomer and one or two other scientists to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus, and to make some other researches on their home voyage. This was the beginning of the present phase of scientific expeditions. In 1770 he touched Australia at Botany Bay, and made a chart of the coast to the north as far as Torres Straits, the importance of which he was the first to point out.
At this time England was greatly puzzled as to what it should do with all such criminals as it had heretofore sent to America. The declaration of independence on the part of the United States had put an end to the transportation of criminals to that country, and the favourable report made by Cook in regard to Botany Bay led Sydney to make up his mind to try Australia. The first transportation was made in 1788, but the colony was soon moved to the magnificent harbour of Port Jackson, where the city of Sydney was gradually built up.
The opening up of the continent was continued with this solitary colony as the base of exploration. Flinders and Bass commenced their expeditions in the year 1795 in a small open boat to both sides of the coast. In 1797 Bass called attention to the strait between Tasmania and the continent, and the next year he circumnavigated the island with Flinders. At the expense of the Government Flinders made charts of a large part of the coast of Australia, and this coast survey was continued from time to time almost to the present day.
During the most recent years attention has been chiefly given to the exploration of the interior.
How difficult it must have been to penetrate the Blue Mountains separating Sydney from the plains in the interior is evident from the fact that men like Bass attempted it in vain. It took twenty-five years to advance the first fifty miles, and thus to find a way between the steep rocks to the open country beyond. The first passage was effected in 1813, and from that time the explorations have progressed rapidly. Oxley, Cunningham, Mitchell, Sturt, and others explored the whole country along the rivers toward Victoria. The German naturalist Dr. L. Leichhardt began his explorations along the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1835, and made most valuable reports. In 1847 he undertook his last expedition, a bold attempt to penetrate to the west coast. Not a word was heard of him after April 3, 1848.
From Adelaide, settled about the same time, a series of attempts were begun in 1839 to penetrate the country from the south to the north. Heroic efforts were made in this direction by Eyre, who afterwards suffered untold hardships in travelling 1200 miles along the coast to King George’s Sound. O’Hara Burke and Wills were the first to reach the north coast in 1861, but both perished from hunger on their way back. The following year M‘Donald Stuart, after having made two abortive attempts, succeeded in getting through, and from that time onwards the route was open. In 1872 a telegraph line was laid, amid great difficulties, across the whole continent. It followed Stuart’s route, and this enterprise became the basis of a series of explorations all the way to the west coast, and thus the main features of the geography of Australia have become established. Prominent names in connection with this are Giles, Forrest, Warburton, and Gregory.
Most of these expeditions into the interior have been undertaken amid the greatest privations, such as a constant lack of water and terrible heat, even up to 127° F., so that it has at times been necessary to bury one’s self in the ground in order to endure it. Add to this the almost impassable spinifex-scrubs, the salt lakes, the sand-storms, etc., and we can form some idea of what the explorer had to suffer. The bright sunlight destroyed Sturt’s eyes, and many a life has been lost in the conflict with these similar impediments. But a large territory has been opened to civilisation by these martyrs.
History of the Colonies
On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Sydney with his first company of prisoners, and in a solemn manner took possession of a whole continent in the name of the inhabitants of a small island on the opposite side of the globe. Had the French expedition under La Perouse come earlier than it did to this place, the whole development of Australia might have taken a different direction. As it was, the ruling power of the British nation got an opportunity of expanding, and a new world was added to the dominion of the Anglo-Saxon race.
The beginning was made by about 1000 deported criminals, about one-fourth part of these being women. Now, one hundred years later, the population of the Australian colonies, leaving New Zealand out of consideration, is nearly 3,000,000. The first means of subsistence had to be produced by agriculture, but as few of the new settlers had any knowledge of this art, there was much suffering in the beginning, and in order to escape death from starvation, the domestic animals which had been brought had to be slaughtered. One hundred years later Australia contains 80,000,000 sheep and almost 8,000,000 head of cattle, and it sends annually to the mother country beef, mutton, wool, tallow, wheat, and metals to the value of about £40,000,000 sterling. A most remarkable progress!
The story of the early days of the colonies is chiefly a history of the deportation of criminals. The first colony received, from 1788 until the importation was stopped in 1839 by the energetic protest of the “free immigrants,” in all 60,000 criminals. The next colony of criminals was Tasmania, or as the island was then called, Van Diemen’s Land (1803). The deportation of criminals to the latter place ceased in 1853, when 68,000 prisoners had been sent there. What the condition was during the early days of these colonies, guarded by rough soldiers, we can judge from the fact that there occurred in 1835 in New South Wales, among 28,000 prisoners, 22,000 disciplinary punishments (3000 floggings) and 100 executions. In Tasmania, with a population of 37,000, about 15,000 were punished in 1834, including one-seventh part of the free citizens arrested for intemperance.
The last colony to which convicts were regularly deported was West Australia, founded in 1829. In 1849 this colony sent a petition to the Government asking for criminals to be sent thither, in order to promote the development of the colony. Under pressure from the other colonies, which finally on their own account resisted by force the landing of such immigrants, West Australia had to abandon this traffic in 1868, having then received about 10,000.
Thus it will be seen that this transportation introduced great numbers of people to Australia, and at the same time the voluntary immigration kept increasing. Two of the present colonies were not started as convict settlements. There was an attempt to send convicts to Melbourne in 1803, but the plan was soon abandoned, and the colony of Port Phillip, as Victoria was then called, was founded in 1834 by free citizens from Tasmania. South Australia was colonised directly by an English company, who received the land for nothing on condition that they should encourage immigration. In 1841 this settlement contained 23,000 inhabitants, chiefly freemen.
The growth of the colonies depended on the development of trade and industries. In the beginning all labour was confined to agriculture, and but little progress was made, till during the first decades of this century MacArthur advocated the raising of sheep with great energy, and after a passage through the Blue Mountains had been found by Macquarie, a new impetus was given to the development of Australia. The manner in which the country became settled may be described as follows—
In the first place, an explorer makes his way into unknown regions. Close on his heels follows the squatter or shepherd, and slowly in his track comes the selector, the permanent agricultural settler. The original huntsman, the shepherd, and the farmer follow each other in rapid succession—it is the history of civilisation in a nutshell.
The economical politics of Australia have long been wrestling with the question of the proper modus vivendi between the squatter and the selector, whose interests are conflicting. Many experiments have been made in the various colonies, but this troublesome question has not yet been solved.
In the midst of the development of sheep-raising and agriculture a third factor, gold, was added, which gave Australia an immense advantage, even though it at the same time interfered with the above-mentioned industries.
The year 1851 marks an epoch in the history of Australia. It was literally the beginning of a golden age for the continent, for in that year the great gold mines of Victoria were discovered.
It had long been believed that gold must be found in Australia; among the deported criminals there were all sorts of reports about finds said to have been made in the Blue Mountains; but the Government paid no attention to these strange rumours and the result was that the matter was not properly investigated.
But in 1851 the greatest excitement was created when the Government purchased from a Californian gold digger, for a large sum of money, some rich gold fields which he had discovered in the Blue Mountains. When the Government by this step had given its public sanction to the question, the colony became wild with excitement. The most extravagant reports concerning the immense wealth of the gold fields were circulated, and were accepted as gospel truth. From all quarters people assembled to the new fountains of wealth, where they expected to find the pure gold in such quantities that it was only necessary to stoop down and fill their pockets with the precious ore. The disappointment when they arrived in the promised land and learned from experience that there was need of months—nay, of years—of hard and persistent labour to attain the wealth they were seeking, was as great as the expectation which had previously been formed. The larger part of the army of adventurers who had flocked together to the gold mines to secure all of a sudden a wealth which they had neither the strength nor the endurance to acquire under ordinary circumstances, returned discouraged to Sydney, after having spent a month in idleness in the gold fields. In their wrath on account of the deception, as they called it, they nearly took the life of the Californian who had discovered the fields.
A number of gold diggers, however, gradually congregated in the Blue Mountains from the various colonies. When the work proved to be very profitable the rush was so great that one of the earlier colonies, the little Victoria, which had recently been founded, was on the point of being entirely deserted. To prevent the colony from perishing altogether, the leading men in Melbourne offered a large reward to any person who succeeded in discovering gold in Victoria. Before long, specimens of gold were found on the Yarra river, a few miles from Melbourne; in the course of a short time the famous gold mines of Ballarat and Bendigo were discovered.
At first gold was found in Ballarat in the usual manner—that is, in the bed of a river; but this was soon exhausted. A thick layer of clay was struck below the sand, and the work was abandoned in order to search for new fields. Fortunately one of the gold diggers, who had made up his mind to stay some time longer, got the idea of working through the clay, and by so doing he reached enormous quantities of gold in the old bed of the river. For centuries the streams had carried gold down from the mountains and deposited it here in “pockets” in the bed of the river. A single “pocket” of this kind would sometimes contain thousands of pounds’ worth of gold. Within a month Ballarat became the richest gold field in the whole world.
The gold fever grew into a perfect rage. Melbourne was almost deserted. People of every class and from every part of the world left their work, their situations, and their homes to seek their fortunes. In Melbourne policemen left their posts of duty, officials threw up their offices, and sailors deserted their ships.
In spite of the fact that everybody rushed to the gold mines, thus preventing a normal development of the country, Australia got full compensation in the new impetus given to immigration. The year after the discovery of gold more than 100,000 immigrants arrived in Victoria. Thus the population was doubled in a single year, and during the following five years it increased fivefold. While in 1830 there were less than 4000 inhabitants, in 1860 their number had increased to 1,300,000. The quantity of gold found was also sufficiently large to explain this increase of population. During the next ten years £100,000,000 were produced in Victoria alone.
As a matter of course, money had but little value in such circumstances. During he first years after the discovery of the gold fields sovereigns passed as freely as copper pennies. A barber would get £1 for cutting a gold digger’s hair; the idea of giving change back was never thought of.
Many characteristic stories are told of this golden age of the fortune-seekers. A gold digger took a holiday, and went into a restaurant where he demanded a breakfast for £10. The hostess looked at him, smiled, and answered that she was not able to furnish so expensive a breakfast at present. Her highest price was five shillings. “Well,” said the customer, “give me the best you have.” The hostess did her best, and served every hot and cold dish she could devise. The gold digger seated himself at the table, looked at the various dishes with the air of an epicure, but at length turned up his nose and declared that there was nothing fit for him to eat. Then he took a large roll of bank-notes out of his pocket, selected a £10 note, laid it between two pieces of bread and butter, ate it, and washed it down with champagne. “That’s what I call a ten-pound breakfast,” he added, and paid his bill and walked out.
Two Irishmen came into an inn to rest while the coachman was changing horses. The Irishmen were gold diggers who had reaped an abundant harvest, and they were now on their way home to the Emerald Isle with their pockets full of gold.
They learned that the innkeeper also was an Irishman, and this fact aroused their patriotism; so they resolved to drink a toast to old Ireland in champagne. Fifty bottles of this choice beverage were demanded for the honour of Ireland. But no sooner had they paid the £50 and opened the first two bottles than the coachman shouts, “All ready!” The Irishmen climb into their places in the coach and proceed on their journey, leaving the host to finish the remaining forty-eight bottles.
The average individual gains were, however, not so large, and the digging for gold was gradually reduced to systematic methods. The work by degrees became a link in that mining industry which embraced copper, coal, and tin. Copper and coal were discovered in Australia long before gold—as was also tin, which in its importance to the colonies may in time equal the others. New discoveries of gold have attracted adventurers to the north of Australia, and opened new avenues for immigration; but the continent is, upon the whole, pastoral and agricultural.
The Chinese have forced their way into all the islands of the Indian Ocean, and this new current of immigration has given the development of Australia, particularly of tropical Queensland, a peculiar character.
Efforts have been made to check in an effective manner this influx of Chinese labourers, who supplant the white workmen. Here, as in America, an “import duty” and similar obstacles have been tried in order to stop the stream, but still the Chinese kept coming. A treaty with China, making immigration therefrom almost impossible, last year failed to be ratified by the Chinese Government. It is still an open question whether there is any way of stopping this influx, or whether the Chinese stream of immigration will continue to form an undercurrent to that from Europe. It does not seem possible that the Chinese will ever become the predominating element.
The Kanakas being better able to endure the heat than the white population, it is probable that here, as in America, a class of Anglo-Saxon plantation-owners dependent on coloured labour may be developed.
The nature of the country has given its industries their peculiar character. The raising of sheep requires immense pastures, and agriculture assumes wide dimensions on the new and fertile soil. The result is that local centres are created with great difficulty in the midst of this industry spread over so large a domain. The points of colonisation first chosen thus obtain a great advantage and monopolise the trade. They become centres of knowledge and of pleasure, and they absorb all that stream of immigrants who are not suited to agriculture and do not acquire land but settle wherever they can earn a bare living. The fact that a population of less than 3,000,000 scattered over an immense territory has two cities, Melbourne and Sydney, of nearly 400,000 inhabitants each, and that one-third of the population of Australia lives in five of the largest cities, is unique and is explained by what has been stated above.
The political separation of the different colonies is intimately connected with the uneven distribution of the population. The independent development of the two chief centres, Melbourne and Sydney, could not fail to break the old New South Wales into two colonies (1851). Tasmania obtained its own seat of government in 1825 in Hobart Town. With Brisbane’s development came Queensland’s separation in 1859 as an independent colony, which doubled its population in the subsequent six years. There is a constantly growing desire for emancipation, and at the present time strenuous efforts are being made to make the north part of Queensland into a separate colony.
At the same time as this work of separation is progressing there are also centralising elements at work, and the latter will no doubt lead to favourable results in the near future. Efforts are being made to unite the various colonies into a confederation. There also prevails a strong common sentiment in regard to the efforts of all other nations to establish colonies in the neighbouring countries (the Germans in New Guinea and the French in New Caledonia), and an arrangement for a common defence of their interests against these rivals has already been begun. National pride is very marked in Australia.
The bond of union between Australia and the mother country has not been loosened in the midst of this development toward independence. On the contrary, the Australians cling to it with increasing tenacity, and with even more enthusiasm than Englishmen themselves. The best proof of this is the fact that Australia sent a special contingent to take part in England’s last war at Suakim. The form of the proposed imperial federation has, however, not yet been worked out.
A similar effort for political emancipation from British control has been going on within the separate colonies. In the first convict settlements of course martial law was administered by their governors, but in the political conflict—carried on chiefly in the mother colony, New South Wales—home rule became fully established. At first the governor chose his own ministers; but in course of time (1824) the ministry became dependent on the general elections, as in England. At length in 1851, the critical year in the annals of Australia, the colonies secured a perfectly independent constitution providing for two legislative houses. In the various colonies members of the upper house were chosen either by the Government or by the wealthy classes of the community. A certain property qualification was also originally necessary for members of the lower house, though this is now merely nominal.
The English system of jurisprudence and of municipal rule prevails everywhere. The schools are free and unsectarian, and attendance is compulsory. The colonies which originally consisted of criminals have developed a remarkable interest in the cause of education. As in the United States, universities and academics are largely the product of private munificence.
Relying on their rapid development and on their large natural resources, the colonies have been induced to incur an enormous public debt, amounting to about £20,000,000, and we must bear in mind that the population is only about 3,000,000. The above debt includes, however, local expenditures, and much of it has been created for building railroads, which were very much needed in this large country. But the Government owns 1,400,000,000 acres of unsold land, and though a part of this is almost worthless, still the revenue which will come in from its sale may justify the incurring of such a debt.
The history of the colonisation reveals a community which still possesses the vigour of youth, and whose culture is wholly European, and these results, wonderful as they are, have been achieved in two generations. If we could visit Australia two generations hence we would probably find a country where not only European flora—grain, grass, etc.—and European fauna—the sheep, horse, cow, rabbit, sparrow, etc.—will have invaded and conquered the large districts which have been cut off from the rest of the world since the tertiary period, but where every trace of the original population will have disappeared. Instead of a stagnation of thousands of years in the first stages of the stone age, we shall have a vigorous development parallel with the culture of Europe and America.
In the whole history of man’s development a more sudden revolution is not known than that which has happened in Australia during this century.
At the centennial festival celebrated last year in Australia it was prophesied that one hundred years hence Australia will be a federal republic with 50,000,000 English-speaking inhabitants, who, sprung from the same race as that which gave birth to the Americans, will have developed into a new but easily recognisable type, resembling but yet differing from their Yankee cousins. The motto of the Australians is “Advance Australia!” They have proved that they have been able to carry out this maxim in the past and they will not fail to do so in the future.
II
GEOLOGY
Australia may be compared to a gigantic plate. The interior part is flat, moderately high (300 to 2150 feet), and the elevation increases toward the edges. The raised edge of this plate is in the south-east, where we find the highest summit in Australia, Mount Townsend, in Kosciuszko Range, which is 7059 feet high. The edge of the plate has a very marked character on the east coast, where a continuous though not very high chain of mountains stretches from Victoria through the eastern part of New South Wales and Queensland to the York peninsula, which bounds on the east the great Gulf of Carpentaria. This whole mountain chain is embraced by the Australian geographers (e.g. G. Sutherland) in the term “The Great Dividing Range,” the separate parts of which have separate names. In the boundary between Victoria and New South Wales it is called the Australian Alps, and west of Sydney the Blue Mountains.
Round the lower part of the Gulf of Carpentaria and in a part of the south coast of Australia the “plate” has no edge, and low and flat country stretches here from the sea far into the interior. On the other hand an elevation is found in the “bottom of the plate” in Central Australia, but this elevation nowhere reaches 3000 feet.
Australia has no streams to be compared with the great rivers of other countries, a fact due to the scarcity of rain. The largest stream is Murray river, which empties itself into the sea on the south coast. With its tributaries it drains a country as large as the triangle formed by North Cape, Christiania, and St. Petersburg. During the rainy season the lower part of Murray river is navigable.
Australia consists of primitive rock, granite, gneiss, and silurian rock—that is to say, very old formations, and nearly identical with those of the Scandinavian peninsula.
There are many coal-bearing strata in Queensland and in the north-eastern part of New South Wales; thus Australia, in addition to its other mineral wealth, also possesses “black diamonds.” In many places strata from the mesozoic period of the earth’s history have been found.
The shell given below, of which I found a large number lying in sandstone near Minnie Downs 400 miles west from Rockhampton, is a gigantic Inoceramus from the cretaceous period. I gave this fossil to the mineralogical cabinet in Christiania University, and it has been described by the Swedish Professor Bernh. Lundgren, who is an authority in this field of science.
A LARGE FOSSIL SEA-SHELL FROM WESTERN QUEENSLAND (Inoceramus maximus)
(length 12¾ inches, breadth 7¼ inches).
The remains of animal and vegetable life found in the older strata agree, as a whole, with those found in other parts of the globe of the same periods. At some time in the mesozoic age the Australian continent must have been separated and have become a continent by itself. This plainly appears in the tertiary period, during which the greater part of Australia seems to have remained an independent dry country. This was also the case during the quaternary period.
Australia has had no ice period. At least but uncertain traces of glacial actions are to be found.
In the tertiary period we must look for the oldest ancestors of the present fauna, in the quaternary for the immediate progenitors, which resemble the present animals, and many of them are remarkable for their size. There has been a kangaroo one-third larger than the present species, there has also been a gigantic animal related to the kangaroo and living on vegetables, the Diprotodon, which was about as large as an elephant. The remains of this animal are so widespread and so numerous as to make it evident that it must have existed wellnigh throughout Australia.
At the time when the country became inhabited by man there still lived one of the great animals of the palæozoic times, namely a bird resembling the ostrich and much larger than the emu. Its bones have been found in the middens of the savages, and the joints show marks of their flint knives.
Among the more recent geological formations is the so-called “desert sandstone,” which is found scattered through a great part of the interior. It contains no sea-shells, and but few remains of plants and of fresh-water shells. There are various opinions in regard to its origin. Some think it was deposited in large lakes, which are supposed to have been very numerous in a remote age. A more probable theory is, however, that the substratum has been disintegrated into sand and stone dust and blown about by the wind.
Australia has no active volcanoes, but extinct ones are numerous. Some of those found in Victoria are believed to have been active in a late prehistoric age.
Among the mineral products of Australia gold is the most important. It had its seat originally in veins of quartz in the oldest rocks. By the disintegration of the rocks during the long geological ages much alluvial gold has been deposited among the sand and the gravel. The running water carries stony substances with it more rapidly than gold, which lags behind on account of its weight. The result is that the deposits increase in quantity as we approach the original seat of the gold, and when circumstances are favourable the gold digger may be handsomely rewarded for his labours.
III
FLORA
Scarcely a flora is to be found with so many peculiarities as the Australian. Still this does not imply that the things which appear so remarkable to the traveller are of equal interest to the botanist, though often they are more so. It is often stated as a curiosity that the Australian “cherry-trees” have the stone outside of the berry, and not inside, as with us in Europe. As a matter of fact this is nothing remarkable, the explanation being simply that what we call the fruit is merely an enlarged berry-like stalk, while the fruit proper is an unsavoury nut, hard as stone, growing at the extreme end of this stalk. Hence the tree is called Exocarpus (“outside fruit”). Similar phenomena are found in other parts of the world.[[23]] The Australian “pear” grows with the large end nearest the stalk; but it is not a pear, just an inedible fruit, hard as wood, of a Proteacea called Xylomelum pyriforme.
[23]. In the West Indies there is a similar fruit, Anacardium, growing at the extremity of the enlarged stalk.
This is not uncommon near Port Jackson. Another species of the same genus inhabits Queensland, and two others Western Australia; all bearing similar woody fruits or seed-vessels.
The arboreous and shrubby vegetation of Australia is almost exclusively evergreen, or rather one might say the leaves are persistent, for the beautiful shades of green characterising the forests and fields of the northern hemisphere are wanting, and are replaced by a monotony of olive-green or bluish-green. On the other hand, brilliantly coloured flowers abound, the natural orders Leguminosæ, Myrtaceæ, and Proteaceæ being especially numerous, diversified, and generally dispersed over the whole country.
Although large areas in the interior have not been botanically explored, the flora of the country is almost as well known as that of Europe, not in its minutest details, but in general character and composition. Robert Brown the eminent English botanist, facile princeps among botanists of his time, was the first real investigator of the exceedingly rich Australian flora. He accompanied Flinders on his voyage of discovery in Australian seas during the first years of the present century, and made very extensive collections of dried plants, which he elaborated after his return home. Noteworthy among subsequent botanists who have turned their attention to the vegetation of that part of the world are Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, and the late Mr. George Bentham. Assisted by the extensive collections and notes accumulated by Mueller, combined with the numerous earlier collections preserved in England, Bentham wrote a descriptive account of all the plants known to inhabit Australia. This work is in English, and it is a monument of industry and learning, consisting of seven octavo volumes with an aggregate of 4000 pages.
LEAVES, FLOWERS, AND FRUIT OF Eucalyptus amygdalina.
Sir Ferdinand von Mueller has since largely supplemented this work, besides publishing a number of highly important, fully illustrated monographs of the more important genera, such as Eucalyptus and Acacia. According to Mueller’s latest census of the flora, the number of species of flowering plants and ferns known to inhabit the country at the end of 1888 was 8909, belonging to 1394 genera and 149 natural orders.
These are large numbers, but, what is more remarkable, something like 7700 of these species are endemic, or peculiar to Australia. The endemic element in a flora is nowhere in the world higher, if even so high, in so large an area, as in Western Australia, where eighty-five per cent of the species are peculiar, and of the remaining fifteen per cent few species extend beyond Australia.
Several genera are very numerous in species, notably Acacia, of which there are upwards of 300, and Eucalyptus, of which there are 150; and Grevillea (Proteaceæ) is represented by 150, and Melaleuca (Myrtaceæ) by 100 species.
Foremost in utility and most prominent in the scenery all over Australia are the species of Eucalyptus, locally named blue gum, green gum, iron-bark, stringy-bark, etc. etc. They vary in stature from dwarf bushes to the tallest tree in the world, one species, E. amygdalina (p. [370]), considerably overtopping the “big trees” (Wellingtonia) of California. In some parts of Victoria there are groves of this tree averaging upwards of 300 feet in height, and several, as recorded in Mueller’s useful Eucalyptographia, have been found to measure more than 400 feet, and the tallest of all 471 feet.
In addition to being the largest and most durable timber of the country, the gum-trees yield a variety of useful products. Most of them exude a valuable gum resin; the bark of others is employed in tanning, and the oil of Eucalyptus is now extracted to the extent of 2000 gallons annually in one factory. Several of them periodically shed their barks in large sheets, after the manner of our planes and birches, but more thoroughly. The leaves, like those of many other Australian trees, are vertical instead of horizontal, so that they afford comparatively little shade. Unlike our forest trees, too, they have more or less conspicuous flowers—some of the western species especially large and highly coloured flowers, followed by woody seed-vessels varying in different species from less than a quarter of an inch to three inches in diameter, and containing numerous very small seeds.
The genus Eucalyptus belongs to a tribe of the Myrtaceæ characterised by having a dry instead of a fleshy fruit. To the same group belongs the large genus Melaleuca, which is likewise almost peculiar to Australia and spread all over it. Conspicuous among the species of Melaleuca is M. Leucadendron, which inhabits all except the south-eastern region. It is called tea-tree, paper-bark tree, and milkwood in the different colonies. The wood of this tree is very beautiful and durable, and valuable for shipbuilding and other purposes; and the papery bark is said to be impervious to water and remains sound after the wood has decayed. The accompanying woodcut (p. [373]) will give an idea of the aspect of the tree.
Next to the Eucalypti, the Proteaceæ and Acaciæ are almost everywhere prominent features in the landscape. The numerous species of Banksia, honeysuckles of the colonists, are generally dispersed, and easily recognised by their large dense heads of showy flowers, succeeded by large, gaping, woody seed-vessels.
With few exceptions, the species of Acacia differ from those of other parts of the world (except two or three in the Mascarene and Sandwich Islands) in the feathery pinnate leaves being reduced to vertically flattened, rounded, and variously shaped organs corresponding to the leaf-stalk, and termed phyllodes. Occasionally, and especially in young seedling-plants, the ordinary pinnate blade is born at the end of the phyllode, thus giving a clue to its true nature.
AN AUSTRALIAN SPRUCE (Araucaria Bidwillii).
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.
THE TEA-TREE (Melaleuca Leucadenron).
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.
IV
FAUNA
Chlamydosaurus kingii.
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.
[24]. Placental mammals are those having a placenta to nourish the fœtus, as is the case with all mammals except the marsupials and monotremes.
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.
[25]. Where only a small part of the yolk goes to form the fœtus, while the greater part is used to nourish it, as is the case with birds, the egg is called meroblastic. With mammals, all the yolk is used to form the fœtus (holoblastic eggs).
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.
WILD GEESE FROM NORTH QUEENSLAND (Anseranas melanoleuca). Photograph from nature.
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.
EGG OF Daphnia lumholtzii.
Daphnia 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.
Cyclestheria hislopi.
SHELL OF A Cyclestheria hislopi.
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.
C. Lumholtz’ travels.
MAP
of
AUSTRALIA
Charles Scribner’s sons, Broadway, New York.
MAP
to illustrate
CARL LUMHOLTZ’ TRAVELS
in
QUEENSLAND.