INTRODUCTION. 
’ Tue “Handlist,” here submitted to the public, has been compiled 
more for the use of students and collectors than for scientists, for 
whom it contains little that is new or of special interest ; but it 
is believed that it will prove helpful, to the student in his earlier 
endeavors to unravel the mysteries of Nature, and to the collector 
that it may enable him, round his camp fire in the evening, to 
determine the specimens which he has obtained during the day. 
There are, however, besides the student and the collector, scattered 
over the length and breadth of these Colonies hundreds of educated 
men, chiefly of the medical profession, who, with all the thirst for 
research which the study of that profession necessarily engenders, 
are unable, except at rare intervals, to consult the numerous 
works which are now indispensable to its comprehension ; to 
these also it is hoped that these pages will prove of assistance by 
bringing, in however imperfect a manner, the history of Australian 
Mammalogy up to date, and thus supplying a much needed want. 
To all I trust that the short introductory notice on mammalian 
Osteology may be of value, but especially to collectors, on whom 
the author would wish to impress the imperative necessity of 
conserving the skeletons, even to the very smallest bone—those 
of the wrist and the ankle, and the so-called “ marsupial bones” 
should be specially looked after—of all Mammals obtained. 
To all, again and again, I must impress the fact that, however 
beautiful or strange the outside covering of the body may be, 
_ the skeleton is of infinitely more value to science; and not to the 
mammalogist alone but to everyone who sincerely endeavors to com- 
prehend the relationship between the various Families, Orders, and 
Classes of living creatures with which our earth is peopled. 
Since the publication of Mr. Gerard Krefft’s “Australian Verte- 
brata—Fossil and Recent,” published in the Catalogue Nat. 
Industrial Prods. N.S. Wales (1877), no work dealing systemati- 
cally with Australian Mammalogy as a whole has been attempted. 
In Mr. Krefft’s list 174 recent species are catalogued as against 
