6 



PREFACE. 



IT is a long hark from the wonders of that zoological 

 backwater, Australia, to those more homely curiosi- 

 ties which lie, as Childrey had it, "at your own 

 doors, easily examinable with little travel, less cost, 

 and very little hazard." With works on natural 

 history leaving the press almost every week, it may 

 be deemed worse than futile to add yet another. 

 The more than kindly reception, however, accorded 

 to a slight sketch of the natural history of the Aus- 

 tralian colonies, that I had the temerity to publish 

 last year, has encouraged me beyond the bounds 

 of mere discretion ; and I am so bold as to hope that 

 the same leniency may be extended to a second 

 offence in the shape of a similar attempt to give in 

 small space a plain sketch of the vertebrate fauna of 

 our own islands. That there is up to the present 

 no single volume on the subject may be seen 



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