PREFACE. 



In the Preface to the ' Birds of Australia,' which has 

 now been fifteen years before the public, I stated 

 that, "Having in the summer of 1837 brought my 

 work on the ' Birds of Europe ' to a successful ter- 

 mination, I was naturally desirous of turning my 

 attention to the Ornithology of some other region; 

 and a variety of opportune and concurring circum- 

 stances induced me to select that of Australia, the 

 birds of which country, although invested with the 

 higliest degree of interest, had been almost entirely 

 neglected." But if the Birds of Australia had not 

 received that degree of attention fi'om the scientific 

 ornithologist which their interest demanded, I can 

 assert, without fear of contradiction, that its highly 

 curious and interesting Mammals had been still less 

 investigated. It was not, however, until I arrived in 

 the country, and found myself surrounded by objects 

 as strange as if I had been transported to another 

 planet, that I conceived the idea of devoting a por- 

 tion of my attention to the mammalian class of its 

 extraordinary fauna. 



The native black, while conducting me through 

 the forest or among the park-like trees of the open 



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