PREFACE. 
As our work is of a general nature, we 
have studiously avoided that technicality of 
science which is so apt to discourage those 
who read chiefly for r.musement; without, in 
the mean time, neglecting to introduce what- 
ever may be essential, in this respeclij to rea- 
ders of every description. 
By the favour of a few friends, lone; resi- 
dent in distant countries, and particularly bv 
the friendship, of a gentleman who resided 
many years in a highly respedtable omcial ca- 
pacity at the British settlement in New South 
Wales, we have not only been enabled to pre- 
sent the naturalist with several non-descript 
articles in this our first volume, but are quali- 
fied to promise, from the same source, a great 
variety of other rare produCLions, both in the 
anraial and vegetable kingdoms. 
To the many, therefore, who have been '^e- 
s'erously pleased wit:i our labours, we mav 
safely engage, that thev are not likely to find 
the subsequent volumes less interesting, than 
what has been so highly honoured with very 
general regard. 
