92 THE Victorian naturalist. 



list of the fish, in the " Royal Society's Proceedings ;" Messrs. 

 Anderson and Spry's excellent work on the "Victorian Butterflies," 

 Mr. O. Lower's splendid list of the Victorian moths now 

 appearing in your journal, and the revised lists of the Vic- 

 torian mammals and birds recently published in the Geelong 

 Nattiralist. 



These are all steps in the right direction ; but I was taught in 

 England that local lists were of greater scientific interest than 

 general lists, and, besides, the latter could always be compiled 

 from them. So, when I settled down in Castlemaine, 1 deter- 

 mined to work away at the local fauna, and after a while offer 

 the results of my work to your society for record in your journal, 

 if you should feel disposed to accept them. 



From the outset I have been met by two difficulties. Firstly, . 

 the time I am able to devote to the subject is limited ; and 

 secondly, and this is the most serious, the difficulty I have experi- 

 enced in getting my specimens identified. My opportunities of 

 visiting the Melbourne Museum are few and very far between, 

 and what descriptions there are of Victorian fauna are spread 

 over a mass of periodical and other literature unobtainable or 

 beyond my reach. Thanks, however, to the extreme kindness of 

 Mr. C. Hedley (of Sydney) and Messrs. Lower and Blackburn 

 (of Adelaide) my Mollusca, Lepidoptera, and a goodly number of 

 the Coleoptera have their distinguishing names pinned over them. 

 My list of land and freshwater shells you have already been good 

 enough to record {Victorian Naturalist, vol. x., p. 6i), and I 

 now propose to give a list of the butterflies I have met with so 

 far. Of course my lists cannot be looked upon as complete — 

 since I recorded the shells I have found two more species — but 

 still they go some way towards a permanent record of what is to 

 be found here, and some time later I will give a supplementary 

 list of subsequent finds. 



Castlemaine, as you are aware, is a little north of the Dividing 

 Range. It is not a first-class collecting ground. The hills are 

 comparatively bare of undergrowth and the shrubs on which 

 insects delight to feed ; there are very few eucalypts of any size 

 in the immediate neighbourhood — nothing but saplings, too thin 

 for the trunks to be any good and yet too tall to get at the tops. 

 Coming from a country like South Africa, where from an area of 

 about four square miles I had taken 98 species of butterflies 

 alone, I was disappointed when I first came here. However, I 

 have obtained a fair number of insects of the various orders, and 

 hope to do better yet. My hunting ground extends to Harcourt 

 and Mount Alexander to the north, Chewton and Elphinstone to 

 the east, Muckleford to the west, and Guildford and Fryerstown 

 to the south. I do not think, from what I can learn, that the 

 district has ever been worked for insects before, but I have met 



