INTRODUCTION. 3 



while Swifts, Swallows, Martins, and Flycatchers perform the 

 same offices as with us ; the nocturnal group of CaprimuI(/idcB 

 are not Avanting where FhasmidcB and Cicadce abound ; Petrels, 

 Gulls, Terns, and Penguins frequent her seas ; her rock-bound 

 shores have their Cormorants ; the sandy spits of her rivers 

 their Pelicans, Sandpipers, and Plovers ; and her swamps 

 and morasses are tenanted by Ducks, Grebes, Gallinules, and 

 Rails of the same types as those inhabiting her antipodes. 

 But these, in nearly every case, are distinct species : she pos- 

 sesses no true Anser ; but every one knows that she has that 

 " rara avis in terris," the Black Swan. It is, however, in the 

 interior of the country (adorned with the universally spread 

 Eucalypti, extensive belts of Bankside, forests of Xanthorrhcece, 

 Melaluc(B, &c.), and in the heated brushes which clothe its 

 south-eastern portions (where stately palms spread their leaves 

 over the eccaleobion or hatching-mound of the Talegcdla and 

 the theatreion or playing-bower of the Ftilonorhynckus), that 

 we find an avifauna diff'erent from that of all other coun- 

 tries, and which presents us with such genera as jEcjotlie- 

 leSy Falcimculus, CoUuricincla, Grallina, Cindosoma, Menura, 

 Psoj)hodes, Malurus, Sericornis, EpJithianura, Pardalotiis, 

 Cldamyderay Struthidea, Licmetis, Calyptorliynclms, Platy- 

 cercus, Euphema, Climacteris, Scythrops, Myzantha, Tcdeyalla, 

 Leipoa, Pedionomiis, Cladorhynchus, Trihonyx, Cereopsis, 

 Anseranas, and Biziiira. 



Some few other genera, such as Graucalus, Artamus, and 

 Halcyon, are represented in the Indian Islands, on the peninsula 

 of India, and even in some portions of the continent of Asia ; 

 and many more genera, and in some instances the same 

 species, extend to New Guinea. The productions of this 

 latter country are, in fact, so similar to those of Australia, that, 

 zoologically speaking, they cannot be separated. In writing 

 thus I, of com'se, include the southern country of Tasmania, 

 but not New Zealand or its satellites. Lord Howe's, Norfolk, 

 and Phillip Islands, and other adjacent specks in the ocean, 



B 2 



