PREFACE. 



The contents of this little Volume are Lepidopterous Insects, indigenous of 

 New South Wales, were there collected, painted, and engraved, by the Author; 

 and sent to London by him for publication, to furnish him with the means of 

 returning to England, his native country, after an absence of near eight 

 years, which he has spent almost solely in the pursuit of natural history, 

 principally in the branches, Ornithology and Entomology; in which he has 

 in New South Wales, and in Otaheite, made some hundred of original paint- 

 ings; from which it is hoped he may, by the profits of this little first effort, 

 be enabled to return and reap an honourable benefit, as their publication, 

 under his ingenious hand, we flatter ourselves, would somewhat redound to 

 the honour, reputation, and increase of those branches of the sciences in 

 Britain. The insects here figured are new, and some of them extraordinary 

 in their natural history, the singularity of which, with the correctness of the 

 figures, must render this Work, we conceive, peculiarly valuable. For till 

 this author, none has discovered, or expected to find lepidopterous in- 

 sects of the families here figured, as the destroyers of timber, or the depre- 

 dators of massy and hardest trees, in the way which is here made known. 

 And it should be observed also, that the natural history, as well as the 

 engraving, was done on the spot, and not from dry specimens, or notes still 

 more abstruse. And all that was left for us to do was merely to define the 

 genus, and name the individual in some cases, which we have done sometimes 

 from the plant on which the insect was found; and for the names of those 

 plants we make our acknowledgments to the learned President of the Lin- 



