ve PREFACE. 
As was the case with the author’s previously published volume, ‘“ The 
Great Barrier Reef of Australia,” the camera has been extensively requisitioned for 
the delineation of the subjects illustrated. These will be found to include, as in 
that volume, various marine organisms photographed in their native element with 
possibly an even greater measure of success. The potency of the camera “to 
hold as ’twere the mirror up to Nature” in almost every conceivable phase and 
condition of her varying moods and tenses, is indeed established in these pages—at 
any rate, to an extent that should recommend the more universal employment 
of this instrument for the portrayal of the protean aspects and metamorphoses of 
living organisms. 
The subjects dealt with in this book include tenants of the sea and shore 
throughout the entire range of the Australian colonies, from North Queensland, 
Port Darwin and Thursday Island, to picturesque Tasmania and Bass’s Straits. A 
larger space has undoubtedly, however, been allotted to the products of Western 
Australia. This colony, although possessing the most extensive land area, has 
but recently come to the forefront among its compeers, and there has hitherto 
been but a scant amount of information available concerning its natural history 
treasures. The marvellous material progress and prosperity that, concurrently with 
the discovery and exploitation of its auriferous wealth, has so pre-eminently distin- 
guished this colony’s career within the past few years will, no doubt, also speedily 
bring about an equivalent awakening to and development of its latent scientific 
potentialities. 
As an indication of the leading position Western Australia is eligible to 
occupy with relation to one important biological subject, reference may be made to 
that Chapter which deals with Houtman’s Abrolhos. As there demonstrated, very 
exceptional facilities prevail at that place for the conduct of reef-boring opera- 
tions and for the prosecution of all methods of investigation relating to Coral and 
Coral life. The Islands are situated within a day’s journey from the metropolis of 
the colony and a few hours’ sail only from the Port of Geraldton. A permanent 
biological observatory established there would, consequently, be in near touch with 
