PREFACE. 



The Tertiary Fossils enumerated iu the following Catalogue are 

 all represented in the Colonial Museum, and_, with a few excep- 

 tions_, have been collected during the Geological Survey of the 

 Colony. About eighty distinct localities for Tertiary Fossils have 

 been examined, but the relative value of the collections from these 

 places as palasontological evidence is very unequal,, owing to the 

 circumstances under which the collections were made. Thus in 

 many cases the fossils are only a few chance specimens obtained 

 during the exploration of remote and uninhabited districts ; and 

 in only a very few instances have the collections been sufficiently 

 exhaustive to afford reliable materials useful in the stratigraphical 

 comparison of widely separated fossiliferous deposits. 



Additional uncertainty must also arise from the fact that in 

 certain localities two or more distinct formations occur, which could 

 not be discriminated at the time when some of the earliest 

 collections were formed. 



The classification of the Formations adopted by Captain 

 Hutton from the numerical proportions of the species is therefore 

 only to be considered as a provisional attempt, but this docs not 

 detract from the value which it is hoped the Catalogue will have 

 for the collector. Hitherto, in the absence of all artificial 

 excavation of the rock masses, the opportunities for obtaining 

 fossils have been few in comparison with those available in more 



