NOTES ON MR. FROGGATT'S COLLECTIONS MADE 

 DURING THE YEAR 1887, IN THE VICINITY OF 

 DERBY, KING'S SOUND, N. W. AUSTRALIA. 



By "William Macleay, F.L.S., &c. 



Mr. Froggatt, the well-known New Guinea Explorer, left Sydney 

 in March last, for King's Sound, with the intention of spending a 

 year, in making a collection for the Macleay Museum of the 

 zoological productions of that part of Australia. 



Since his departure I have received from him two consignments 

 of specimens ; the first of them was briefly noticed at our meetin*^ 

 of June last, the other only just received, is now noticed for the 

 first time. I propose in the following notes to give a general 

 sketch of both these collections, in order, so far as they will admit, 

 to give some idea of the character of the fauna of that almost 

 unknown portion of Australia. The Fauna of Port Darwin and 

 its neighbourhood has of late years been pre tty well investigated, 

 but that lies nearly 500 miles north of King's Sound and in a 

 very different description of country, while to the south the 

 nearest point until lately visited by naturalists is Nicol 

 Bay, some hundreds of miles distant. My anticipations there- 

 fore of finding a widely different fauna with some approach 

 to that of the Dutch East Indian Archipelago, were not 

 altogether unreasonable. The result, however, is quite the opposite. 

 A more thoroughly characteristic Australian Fauna there cannot be. 

 The species are many of them, I may say mostly, new, but they are 

 all of Australian forms and genera, and with one or two exceptions 

 present nothing striking. These observations are general and 

 apply to all the animal divisions, but it is only among the insect 



