PEEFAiCE. 
For many years I have had in contemplation the publishing of 
a reliable list of the Australian Butterflies known to science, 
embracing the full synonymy of and reference to each species, 
and have been steadily accumulating the material necessary to the 
fulfilment of this object. Want of time, however, but more espe- 
cially the difficulty of reference to the mass of literature requiring 
to be consulted, through the former paucity of entomological works 
in the colonies (a want that has, however, of more recent years 
been gradually surmounted by the very considerable-development of 
the various local museum scientific libraries), has hitherto proved a 
bar to my intention. 
I now feel that I may with confidence make available to fellow- 
workers in this branch of zoology the benefit of over twenty years' 
study of the subject in Queensland and of some experience in other 
of the colonies, and supply a want that I am sure has been felt. 
The only attempt of the kind is the catalogue published some 
years since by Mr. Geo. Masters, then of the Australian Museum, 
Sydney, and this was far from being a complete work upon the 
subject. 
It is now thirteen years since the admirable work of Mr. W. F. 
Kirby was completed by the publication of his " Supplement to the 
Synonymic Catalogue of the Diurnal Lepidoptera of the World" ; 
and since then many new species have been described, and many 
others identified as Australian, not before known to occur in this 
country ; it is fully time, therefore, that our known species should 
be brought up to date, and the work of more recent authors added 
to that of those already catalogued, and the embodiment of the 
species of so well defined a region as the Australian continent 
secured in one list. 
I only regret that it is out of my power at the present time to 
extend my present publication to a full descriptive work on the 
subject, and make use of the mass of observations that has accumu- 
lated in my notebooks upon the life-history of many of the species. 
This must, however, stand over for a future time. 
It is, I suppose, incumbent upon me to offer some remark upon 
the reason that induces me to adhere to the older arrangement in 
position of the families, in preference to that adopted by almost 
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