In the Triassic epoch, the distribution of the dry land and of terrestrial vertebrate life appears to have been, generally, similar to that which existed in the Mesozoic epoch; so that the Triassic continents and their faunae seem to be related to the Mesozoic lands and their faunae, just as those of the Miocene epoch are related to those of the present day.  In fact, as I have recently endeavoured to prove to the Society, there was an Arctogaeal continent and an Arctogaeal province of distribution in Triassic times as there is now; and the Sauropsida and Marsupialia which constituted that fauna were, I doubt not, the progenitors of the Sauropsida and Marsupialia of the whole Mesozoic epoch.

Looking at the present terrestrial fauna of Australia, it appears to me to be very probable that it is essentially a remnant of the fauna of the Triassic, or even of an earlier, age[7] in which case Australia must at that time have been in continuity with the Arctogaeal continent.

[Footnote 7:  Since this Address was read, Mr. Krefft has sent us news of the discovery in Australia of a freshwater fish of strangely Palaeozoic aspect, and apparently a Ganoid intermediate between Dipterus and Lepidosiren. [The now well-known Ceratodus. 1894.]]

But now comes the further inquiry, Where was the highly differentiated Sauropsidan fauna of the Trias in Palaeozoic times?  The supposition that the Dinosaurian, Crocodilian, Dicynodontian, and to Plesiosaurian types were suddenly created at the end of the Permian epoch may be dismissed, without further consideration, as a monstrous and unwarranted assumption.  The supposition that all these types were rapidly differentiated out of Lacertilia in the time represented by the passage from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic formation, appears to me to be hardly more credible, to say nothing of the indications of the existence of Dinosaurian forms in the Permian rocks which have already been obtained.

For my part, I entertain no sort of doubt that the Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals of the Trias are the direct descendants of Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals which existed in the latter part of the Palaeozoic epoch, but not in any area of the present dry land which has yet been explored by the geologist.

This may seem a bold assumption, but it will not appear unwarrantable to those who reflect upon the very small extent of the earth’s surface which has hitherto exhibited the remains of the great Mammalian fauna of the Eocene times.  In this respect, the Permian land Vertebrate fauna appears to me to be related to the Triassic much as the Eocene is to the Miocene.  Terrestrial reptiles have been found in Permian rocks only in three localities; in some spots of France, and recently of England, and over a more extensive area in Germany.  Who can suppose that the few fossils yet found in these regions give any sufficient representation of the Permian fauna?