Оглавление
A. J. Sargent. Australasia
Australasia
Table of Contents
LECTURE II NEW SOUTH WALES
LECTURE III QUEENSLAND
LECTURE IV VICTORIA AND TASMANIA
LECTURE V SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA
LECTURE VI NEW ZEALAND—SOUTH ISLAND
LECTURE VII NEW ZEALAND—NORTH ISLAND
LECTURE VIII FIJI AND THE WESTERN PACIFIC
List of Slides
LECTURE I
LECTURE II
LECTURE III
LECTURE IV
LECTURE V
LECTURE VI
LECTURE VII
LECTURE VIII
Отрывок из книги
A. J. Sargent
Eight Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office
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The only existing allies of the marsupials of Australia are to be found in the opossums and some other less known animals of South America; but the opossum of South America resembles less his Australian namesake than the other group, the dasyures. In Europe and Asia the marsupials existed, but only in very remote geological ages, as their remains prove. It has been argued from the existence of the opossum family in America that at some time there must have been a land connexion between Australia and South America, either by way of the islands of the Pacific or by an Antarctic continent. But the isolation of Australia must have been very ancient, since it has given time for the development of the enormous differences which we have seen among the individuals of the same family.
Even these strange animals, old as they are, are not the most primitive to be found in Australia. The ornithorhynchus or duck-billed platypus lives in a 16 burrow by the river; it has teeth when young, but seems to lose these as it grows up. It is said to lay eggs like a reptile, though it is a true mammal. We are not surprised to learn that when the first stuffed specimen of this strange beast reached Europe it was thought to be a fraud, put together to deceive the ignorant and unwary. Another of these egg-laying animals is the echidna, or spiny ant-eater, which has a kind of beak for burrowing and a long sticky tongue to capture its prey. It has sharp spines and rolls itself into a ball like a hedgehog when attacked. In addition to these curious animals there are rats and mice and the dingo, or native dog, of a type more familiar 17 to us. It is thought possible by some that the dingo, being so different from the other native animals, was introduced by man at some very early date.
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