38 



I travelled over Caffraria and several of the most remote 

 parts of the Colony, I not only actively collected all the fishes 

 I could observe, but I wrote detailed descriptions, and made 

 drawings of every sort, with their natural colours ; but, charged 

 by my Government to establish a French Consulate at Siam, I 

 extracted, before I left the Cape Colony, a short notice from my 

 manuscript, and sent it for publication in June, 1858, to my 

 late friend, Professor August Dumeril. Different circumstances 

 delayed, during my absence, the printing of my " Memoir e 

 Sur les Poissons de JO Afrique Australe," which only appeared 

 at the beginning of 1861. It is in his seventh volume (1868) 

 that Dr. Gunther quotes for the first time this publication, and 

 does it in his usual style. I must say that I still believe that 

 the study, during several years, of the fishes of a distant region 

 cannot be entirely useless to science. In India, I continued my 

 ichthyological labours. At Bangkock I collected the sorts of the 

 great Mainam River ; at Saigon, those of the Meklong ; and, 

 during a more or less lengthened stay at Malacca, Sumatra Java, 

 Ceylon, and Singapore, I described and sketched from nature over 

 750 sorts. On my return to Europe, I began to put in order my 

 voluminous notes, but having been obliged, on account of sickness, 

 to interrupt my work, I was, on my recovery, struck with a most 

 disagreeable surprise, in discovering that my servant had, for 

 more than one month, used the sheets of paper on which I had 

 bestowed so much time and labour to light the fires, and other 

 parts of my learned lucubrations were discovered in the last 

 place in the world where an author would be proud of finding 

 his works. Totally disheartened, I disposed of my collection and 

 drawings in favour of Professor Lacordaire, of the Liege 

 University, another of my old friends, who has also lately been 

 swept away before he could complete his great work on the 

 Coleoptera Insects, and once more I devoted the whole of my time 

 to Entomological researches. 



I had always since my arrival in the Colony, nine years ago, 

 been struck by the want of a work on the fishes of Australia, 

 and of Victoria in particular. In such a new country, vernacular 

 names are far from possessing the same degree of fixity as they 

 do in Europe ; and putting aside a dozen or two very common 

 sorts, every fishmonger gives a different name to the same 



