PREFACE. 



such illustrations as are ready, without systematic order or waiting 

 for the completion of any one branch. The many good observers 

 in the country will thus have the means of accurately identifying 

 various natural objects, their observations on which, if recorded and 

 sent to the National Museum, where the originals of all the figures 

 and descriptions are preserved, will be duly acknowledged, and 

 will materially help in the preparation of the final systematic volume 

 to be published for each class when it approaches completion. 



This fourth Decade gives illustrations in the first plate and in 

 the text of tlie Eared Fur- Seal, or Sea-Bear, of the Victorian coasts, 

 of sufficient fullness to set at rest the question of its specific distinc- 

 tion from the nearly allied New Zealand one. 



The second plate represents for the first time a small, new, pretty, 

 poisonous snake of the rare genus Furina. 



The third plate shows the colors of the fresh state of a rare 

 species of Sebastes, popularly known as the Banded Red Gurnet- 

 Perch. 



The fourth plate figures another of the few fishes of our bay 

 unmistakably identical with an English species, namely, the Angel- 

 fish or Angel-Shark. 



The four following plates are devoted to careful illustrations of 

 the twenty-nine species of Lepralia^ found iu Hobson's Bay, of 

 which only six have been figured before. 



The ninth plate illustrates our five species Crisia, only two of 

 which had been previously figured. 



The tenth plate shows the dwelling cases, larvae, pupae, and 

 adult states of two species of those most abnormal and curious of 

 all Lepidopterous Insects, the so-called Case-Moths, or House-builder 

 Moths, which in habits, and in structure of the female, differ com- 

 pletely from any other Lepidoptera. The more abundant of the 

 two, the case of which is found iu numbers on nearly every tree iu 

 the colony, has not been figured before iu the adult state. 



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