JOTTINGS IN AUSTRALIA. 



CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTORY. 



The following "Jottings in Australia" have been published at 

 intervals in various periodical works, and are only re-published in 

 this, we hope, more convenient form, from the want, which we feel 

 assured others have felt in common with ourselves, on newly arriv- 

 ing in this country, of a work which would afford some informa- 

 tion relative to the more common Birds, Insects, Plants, &c, met 

 with in their daily rambles. All that is published on the Natural 

 History of Australia is scattered through the writings of travellers, 

 or written in the Latin tongue, which, however familiar to a skilled 

 botanist, is rather apt to damp the ardour of the young student. 

 In ornithology, Goold's is the only work, but far too costly for the 

 general reader. In algology, Professor Harvey's "Nereis Australia" 

 is much to be commended, as it contains the whole of the sea-weeds 

 of the Southern Ocean. First and foremost among Botanical 

 Works is the " Prodromus Florce Novce Hollandice, " by Robert 

 Brown, "that most illustrious of living botanists, and the man 

 who first opened out to science the richness and singularity of the 

 Australian Flora."* 



So closely have we adhered to our title, " Jottings in Australia," 

 that we might almost say with Montaigne, we " have here made a 

 nosegay of wild-flowers, and have brought nothing of our own but 

 the string which binds them;" for other avocations occupy our time 

 and forbid our rambling " ancle deep in flowers," or chasing the 



"Insect crowds 

 That make the sunshine populous." — Bryant. 



* Lecture by Edward Forbes, F.R.S., on the knowledge of Australian rocks. 



B 



