Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    267/408 page 259
    The most conspicuous are these marsupials, which exist in great varieties here, though unknown in the elder continent, and only found in a few mean forms in America. Next to them are the mono- tremata, which are entirely peculiar to this portion of the earth. Now these are animals at the bottom of the mammiferous class, adjoining to that of birds, of whose character and organization the monotre- mata largely partake, the ornithorhynchus present- ing the bill and feet of a duck, producing its young in eggs, and having, like birds, a clavicle between the two shoulders. The birds of Australia vary in structure and plumage, but all have some singu- larity about them—the swan, for instance, is black. The country abounds in reptiles, and the prevalent fishes are of the early kinds, having a cartilaginous structure. Altogether, the plants and animals of this minor continent convey the impression of an early system of things, such as might be displayed in other parts of the earth about the time of the oolite. In con- nexion with this circumstance, it is a fact of some importance, that the geognostic character of Aus- tralia, its vast arid plains, its little diversified sur- face and consequent paucity of streams, and the _ very slight development of voleanic rock on its
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