The climate, though hot in summer, for the most part is (outside Sydney) usually dry and bracing, Queensland and Western Australia not excepted. In that season some of the colonies are subject to a short spell of hot winds, which serve the useful purpose of destroying insect pests that would otherwise prove disastrous to agriculture and gardening.

FLORA AND FAUNA.

As regards flora and fauna, an intelligent visitor from Europe experiences a complete contrast in comparison with the animals and plants of the northern hemisphere. Indeed, these are far more remarkable than he could meet with in any other part of the world. Australia is the native home of the famous eucalyptus, which has been mentioned. Forests of this tree in Eastern Australia, sometimes reaching a height of 480 feet, are said to exude the vitalising principle of ozone, which is wafted over the country, diffusing health in all directions. Even the "mallee scrub" of the bush is a species of dwarfed eucalyptus, and this is found mingled with acacia eastward and, west of the South Australian lakes, with spinifex. In Europe and America, trees shed their leaves; in Australia they shed their bark, which serves to roof the huts of the aborigines. There are nearly 10,000 species of flowering plants on the great southern continent, about 6000 species of temperate, and 2000 species of tropical flora. The most remarkable peculiarity of the temperate Australian vegetation is the marked difference which prevails between its eastern and western sections as regards plant and tree life. But stranger still is it that, although West Australia has no mountains worthy of the name, and a much smaller area of fertile land than exists on the eastern side, it, nevertheless, possesses as rich

a flora as Eastern Australia, and one much more unique.

The zoology is even more extraordinary than its botany. Every one of the most characteristic and widespread animal groups of the entire northern hemisphere are here wanting. There are no apes or monkeys; no oxen, antelopes, or deer; no elephants, rhinoceroses, or pigs; no cats, wolves, or bears; none even of the smaller civets or weasels; no hedgehogs or shrews; no indigenous hares, squirrels, porcupines, or dormice. Yet the country contains a considerable variety of mammals indigenous to Australia; all belonging, however, to distinct sub-classes. They are divided into marsupials and monotremes, of which the only congeners now left in any other part of the world are a few opossums which inhabit America. Of Australian mammals there are no less than 160 species-the fruiteating flying-fox being the most remarkable. But the original habitat of the Dingo, a wild dog, so well known in South Australia, does not exist anywhere in Australia. Marsupials are distinguished from other mammals by the young being born in an extremely imperfect state, and transferred by the mother to a natural pouch which she carries. In this receptacle the baby kangaroo attaches its mouth to the nipple, and thus completes its development. As it grows, the pouch enlarges for its accommodation, and even when it can get out and run about on the ground and feed itself, it continues for a time to return to this curious temporary abode, which is suspended from its mother's chest for concealment and protection. The largest and most striking marsupials now living are kangaroos, of the Macropida family, of which nine large and more than forty smaller species inhabit Australia. The great red kangaroo is five feet high, and weighs 200 lbs. The small kind are called wallabies, hare-kangaroos, and rat-kangaroos. The larger sort are hunted

with dogs bred for the purpose. The red kangaroos are swift and dangerous. When pursued, they will not uncommonly sit erect against the trunk of a tree, and when the dogs attempt to spring at their throats, they will strike out with their fore-feet and rip up the dogs with the nails of their large, sharp, and powerful middle toes. Among the smaller marsupials, bandicoots and rabbit-rats run on all-fours. In the pigfooted bandicoot the pouch opens downward instead of upward, as in the kangaroo, and it feeds on bulbs and roots. The phalangers, or tree-climbing species, are most active at night, and feed on leaves. They are usually called opossums, but are somewhat distinct from the animals in America to which that name is applied. Allied to the former are the beautiful flying opossums, which greatly resemble the flying squirrels of Asia. The flying mouse is one of the smallest of Australian quadrupeds, being so tiny, indeed, as to be able to sleep in a good-sized pill-box. The wombat is three feet long, and is next for size to the kangaroo, which is the largest of existing marsupials. The flesh of the wombat is said to resemble pork.

The lowest group of Australian mammals are monotremes, and consist of two of the most extraordinary animals to be met with in the world-the duck-billed platypus and the echidna, or spiny ant-eater.

The platypus (ornithorynchus), or water-mole, is twenty inches long, and has very short legs, broad webbed feet, and a flat head, from which latter project two flat horny jaws, almost exactly resembling the bill of a duck, the upper jaw having a strong membranous border. The animal is covered with thick brown fur, and inhabits lagoons and rivers in Southern and Eastern Australia. It makes burrows in river banks forty or fifty feet long, in the extremity of which it builds its nest. It lays two eggs, which, in form and structure, more resemble those of reptiles than of birds. Yet the

creature has mammary glands, and suckles its young, forming an interesting link between mammalia and reptiles.

The echidna, the other Australian monotreme, resembles a hedgehog in size and appearance.

It has a long snout, a long cylindrical and flexible tongue, covered, like that of the true ant-eater, with a viscous secretion. The echidna has a fairly-developed pouch, in which it places its eggs, carrying them about till they are hatched. Marsupials, at a far-distant period in the history of the world, were widely distributed in many countries, and the circumstance to which alone we are indebted for their preservation solely in Australia down to our own times, is that the continent, as a whole, has been preserved from submergence, which meanwhile has overtaken all other lands which were once above water, concurrently with Australia. Thus we have in the latter country preserved, as in an antique museum, living specimens of fauna which once inhabited many other parts of the globe, in varieties long extinct elsewhere, from the subsidence of the lands to which they originally belonged.

It is admitted by naturalists that Australia is unrivalled for variety of form, beauty of plumage, and singularity of habits in its birds. Of these the struthious, or large wingless family, are the most notable for size. The parrots and cockatoos are more numerous and beautiful than those of many tropical countries. There is the regent bird, with its velvety black coat, and the rifle bird, unrivalled in its array of intensely metallic plumage. Many of the native pigeons are exquisitely beautiful, while some warblers, fly-catchers, curious species of wrens, and many finches, are unsurpassed for lovely combinations of vivid and varied colour. The strange yet elegant tail of the lyre-bird is altogether sui generis, and the habits of the brush turkeys and bower-birds are most remarkable.

Two great families of the feathered tribe which range almost over all the rest of the globe-vultures and woodpeckers-are foreign to Australia. Pheasants are also wanting. But the absence of these is more than compensated by the presence of large families of interesting bird varieties exclusively Australian, including honey-suckers, broad-tailed parroquets, with other types, some of which have been already described. Species of birds are developed by the rich variety of flowers which abound, corresponding to the hummingbirds of America.

The brush turkeys are like reptiles, in this respect, that they never sit on their eggs, but bury them under mounds of earth or decaying vegetable matter, where they are hatched by the heat of the sun. Compared with the size of the bird, the eggs are enormous, and they are laid at intervals of several days. The mounds constructed by the megapodins, which belongs to this type, are immense. One of these was found to be fifteen feet high, and sixty feet in circumference at the base. The whole is composed largely of sticks and stones, and is placed under the shade of a thick-leaved tree, to prevent the evaporation of moisture. The eggs are laid in holes, ranging from the top to the bottom of the mound. When these are hatched, the young birds find their way out through subterraneous labyrinths, and thus instinctively provide for themselves.

Australian parrots are wonderfully varied and beautiful. There are white, rose-crested, and black cockatoos, gorgeous broad tails, pretty lories, elegant grass parroquets, and love-birds. There are green fruit doves, bronze-wings-magnificent fruit pigeons being most noteworthy. The kingfishers are of strange form and brilliant colours, one of the largest being the "laughing jackass," which makes the forests and hillranges resound with its notes, which resemble prolonged and hearty human laughter. The name of "jackass,”