Enjoying, by the blessing of Providence, constant good health, and energies as yet unimpaired, I propose still to devote my humble efforts to the advancement of Ornithology, that science which treats of one of the most pleasing portions of the Almighty’s many wonderful works; and with ample materials at my command for illustrating the Birds of another magnificent portion of the domains of the British Crown—India—my next work will probably be on “the Birds of Asia,” which will, irrespective of all other considerations, be of no little interest as forming the connecting link between the Birds of Europe and the Birds of Australia.
JOHN GOULD.
June 12, 1848.
INTRODUCTION.
Geological researches into the structure of the globe show that a succession of physical changes have modified its surface from the earliest period up to the present time, and that these changes have been accompanied with variations not only in the phases of animal and vegetable life, but often in the development also of organization; and as these changes cannot be supposed to have been operating uniformly over the entire surface of the globe in the same periods of time, we should naturally be prepared for finding the now existing fauna of some regions exhibiting a higher state of development than that of others; accordingly, if we contrast the fauna of the old continents of geographers with the zoology of Australia and New Zealand, we find a wide difference in the degree of organization which creation has reached in these respective regions. In New Zealand, with the exception of a Vespertilio and a Mus, which latter is said to exist there, but which has not yet been sent to this country, the most highly organized animal hitherto discovered, either fossil or recent, is a bird; in Australia, if compared with New Zealand, creation appears to have considerably advanced, but even here the order Rodentia is the highest in the scale of its indigenous animal productions; the great majority of its quadrupeds being the Marsupiata (Kangaroos, &c.) and the Monotremata (Echidna and Ornithorhynchus), which are the very lowest of the Mammalia; and its ornithology being characterized by the presence of certain peculiar genera, Talegalla, Leipoa and Megapodius; birds which do not incubate their own eggs, and which are perhaps the lowest representatives of their class, while the low organization of its botany is indicated by the remarkable absence of fruit-bearing trees, the Cerealia, &c.
My investigation of the natural productions of Australia induces me to believe, that at some remote period that country was divided into at least two portions, since, with a few exceptions, I find the species inhabiting the same latitudes of its eastern and western divisions differing from, but representing each other. Some writers, Captain Sturt and Mr. Jukes, e.g. are of opinion that its subdivision was even greater, and that the sandy deserts now met with in the interior were formerly the beds of the seas that flowed between the archipelago of islands of which they suppose it to have been composed. In a valuable paper by Mr. Jukes, entitled ‘Notes on the Geology of the Coasts of Australia,’ read at the meeting of the Geological Society on the 17th of November 1847, that gentleman stated, that “The eastern coast is occupied by a great range of high land, appearing like a continuous chain of mountains when seen from the sea, and rising in several places to 5000 feet or more above the sea-level. This chain has an axis of granite, with occasional large masses of greenstone, basalt and other igneous rocks. It is flanked on both sides by thick beds of palæozoic formations, chiefly sandstone, but also containing limestone and coal. In the northern portion of the chain Dr. Leichardt found similar formations—and especially trap and granite near the Burdekin river. In the Port Phillip district there are similar igneous rocks, and on the coast tertiary formations resting on the edges of upturned palæozoic beds. In West Australia, the Darling range consists of granite below, covered by metamorphic rocks; and between it and the sea is a plain composed of tertiary beds. In the colony of North Australia there is a great sandstone plateau, rising about 1800 feet above the sea, and probably of palæozoic age; whilst on the immediate shore and round the Gulf of Carpentaria are beds supposed to belong to the tertiary period. Similar formations constitute the substratum of the central desert; in which Captain Sturt was compelled to turn back, when half-way to the Gulf of Carpentaria, from the southern coast. Hence these tertiary rocks are probably continuous through the whole centre of the island, and during the tertiary period all this portion of the country was submerged, whilst the high lands on the coast rose like four groups of islands from the shallow sea.”—Athenæum, Nov. 24, 1847.
Whichever of these opinions be the correct one, we certainly find the natural productions of all these portions of the country composed of precisely the same types, the generality of which differ entirely from those of the islands of the Indian Archipelago on the one hand, and of New Zealand and Polynesia on the other.
With respect to the position of Australia, it will only be necessary to state that it is situated between the 10th and 45th degrees of south latitude, and the 112th and 154th degrees of longitude east from Greenwich; its extent, in round numbers, may therefore be said to be 3000 miles in length, or from west to east, and inclusive of Van Diemen’s Land nearly the same in breadth, or from north to south. In its present uplifted position its form is nearly square, with a depressed centre bounded by an almost continuous range of hills and plateaux, which, varying in altitude from one to six thousand feet above the level of the sea, in some places approach the coast and present lofty and inaccessible cliffs to the ocean, while in others they trend towards the interior of the country at a distance of from twenty to eighty miles from the coast-line; but inasmuch as these elevations are all of an undulating and not of a precipitous character, no part of the country can be considered as strictly alpine. Nothing can be more different than the features of the country on the exterior and interior of this great barrier, particularly on the eastern coast, where, between the mountains and the sea, the vegetation partakes to a great extent of a tropical character; it is there, on the rich alluvial soil, formed by the debris washed down from the hills, that we find various species of Eucalypti, Fici,and other trees, many of which attain an immense altitude, and forests of towering palms; the surface of the ground beneath clothed with a dense and impervious underwood, composed of dwarf trees, shrubs and tree-ferns festooned with creepers and parasitic plants in the richest profusion, the continuity of which is here and there broken by rich open meadow-like districts admirably adapted for the pasturing of cattle, and to which, from the frequent occurrence of the Angophoræ, a tribe of trees in which the settlers see a fancied resemblance to the apple-trees of Europe, the name of Apple-tree Flats has been given. Within the ranges, on the other hand, we find immense open downs and grassy plains, studded here and there with detached belts and forests of Eucalypti, Acaciæ, &c., presenting a park-like appearance, to which, as we advance farther towards the interior, succeed either extensive marshes or land of a most sterile description. The face of this vast country consequently presents much variety of aspect; the infrequency of rain tends much to give a sombre brown hue to the surface of the ground, which however is relieved by the constant verdure of its trees, the peculiar lanceolate form and the pendent position of which render them almost shadowless. It is in the neighbourhood of the few rivers which intersect the country, and in the lower flats flooded by the waters, when floods occur, that we find the vegetation more luxuriant and the trees attaining a far greater size; the sides of the rivers are moreover fringed with Casuarinæ and other trees, which, although of large size, never arrive at the altitude of the stately Eucalypti, which attain, under favourable circumstances, a size and height which appear perfectly incredible. Mr. Backhouse states that one measured by him on the Lopham Road, near Emu Bay in Van Diemen’s Land, which, “was rather hollow at the bottom and broken at the top, was 49 feet round at about 5 feet from the ground; another that was solid, and supposed to be 200 feet high, was 41 feet round; and a third, supposed to be 250 feet high, was 55½ feet round. As this tree spread much at the base, it would be nearly 70 feet in circumference at the surface of the ground. My companions spoke to each other when at the opposite side of this tree from myself, and their voices sounded so distant that I concluded they had inadvertently left me, to see some other object, and immediately called to them. They in answer remarked the distant sound of my voice, and inquired if I were behind the tree! When the road through this forest was forming, a man who had only about two hundred yards to go, from one company of work-people to another, lost himself: he called, and was repeatedly answered; but getting further astray, his voice became more indistinct, till it ceased to be heard, and he perished. The largest trees do not always carry up their width in proportion to their height, but many that are mere spars are 200 feet high.”
A prostrate tree noticed by Mr. Backhouse in the forest near the junction of the Emu River with the Loudwater “was 35 feet in circumference at the base, 22 feet at 66 feet up, 19 feet at 110 feet up; there were two large branches at 120 feet; the general head branched off at 150 feet; the elevation of the tree, traceable by the branches on the ground, was 213 feet. We ascended this tree on an inclined plane, formed by one of its limbs, and walked four abreast with ease upon its trunk! In its fall it had overturned another 168 feet high, which had brought up with its roots a ball of earth 20 feet across.” There are other remarkable features, which, as they appertain to districts frequently alluded to in the course of the work, it becomes necessary to notice, namely the immense deltas formed by the descent of the waters of the interior, such as the valley of the Murray near its embouchure into the sea, spoken of as the great Murray scrub of South Australia; this enormous flat of nearly one hundred miles in length by more than twenty in breadth is clothed with a vegetation peculiarly its own, the prevailing trees which form a belt down the centre consisting of dwarf Eucalypti, while the margins are fringed with shrub-like trees of various kinds. Nor must the immense belts of Banksiæ, which grow on the sand-hills bordering the sea-coast and in some parts of the interior, or the districts clothed with grass-trees (Xanthorrhæa), be passed over unnoticed; in the intertropical regions of Australia, of which at present so little is known, we find, besides the Eucalypti, Banksiæ and other trees of the southern coast, dense forests of canes, mangroves, &c. Each of these districts has a zoology peculiarly its own: for instance, the Banksiæ are everywhere tenanted by the true Meliphagi; the Eucalypti by the Ptiloti and Trichoglossi; the towering fig-trees by the Regent and Satin birds; the palms by the Carpophagæ or fruit-eating Pigeons, and the grassy plains by the ground Pigeons, Finches and grass Parrakeets. The circumstance of the boles of the trees being destitute of a thick corrugated rind or bark will doubtless account for the total absence of any member of the genus Picus or Woodpeckers, a group of birds found in all parts of the world with the exception of Australia and Polynesia.
Such then is a transient view of a few of the great physical features of Australia to which I have thought it requisite to allude in the Introduction of the present work, and I cannot conclude this portion of the subject without mentioning the very remarkable manner in which many of the Australian Birds represent other nearly allied species belonging to the Old World, as if some particular law existed in reference to the subject, the species so represented being evidently destined to fulfil the same offices in either hemisphere. As instances in point, I may mention among the Falconidæ the F. hypoleucus and F. melanogenys, which represent the F. Islandicus and F. Peregrinus; our Merlin and Kestril are equally well represented by the Falco frontatus and Tinnunculus Cenchroïdes of Australia; the Osprey of Europe also is represented by the P. leucocephala; among the wading birds, the Curlew and the Whimbrel of Europe are beautifully represented by the Numenius Australis and N. uropygialis, and the bar-tailed and black-tailed Godwits by the Limosa uropygialis and L. Melanuroïdes. Both Europe and Australia have each one Stilted Plover, one Dottrell (Eudromias), and one Avocet. Among the water birds the Cormorants and Grebes of Europe are similarly represented by the Phalacrocorax Carboïdes, &c., and Podiceps Australis, P. Nestor and P. gularis; and other instances might be noticed, but as they will all be found in the body of the work, it will not be necessary to recapitulate them here. Although so many curious instances of representation and of nearly allied species are found to occur, no country possesses so many genera peculiar to itself as Australia, such as Ægotheles, Falcunculus, Colluricincla, Grallina, Gymnorhina, Strepera, Cinclosoma, Menura, Psophodes, Malurus, Sericornis, Ephthianura, Pardalotus, Chlamydera, Ptilonorhynchus, Struthidea, Licmetis, Calyptorhynchus, Platycercus, Euphema, Nymphicus, Climacteris, Scythrops, Myzantha, Talegalla, Leipoa, Pedionomus, Cladorhynchus, Tribonyx, Cereopsis, Anseranas, and Biziura.