PREFACE. 
In the Preface to the ‘ Birds of Australia,’ which has now been fifteen years before the 
public, I stated that, “ Having in the summer of 1837 brought my work on the £ Birds 
of Europe ’ to a successful termination, I was naturally desirous of turning my attention 
to the Ornithology of some other region ; and a variety of opportune and concurring cir- 
cumstances induced me to select that of Australia, the birds of which country, although 
invested with the highest degree of interest, had been almost entirely neglected.” But 
if the Birds of Australia had not received that degree of attention from the scientific 
ornithologist which their interest demanded, I can assert, without fear of contradiction, that 
its highly curious and interesting Mammals had been still less investigated. It was not, 
however, until I arrived in the country, and found myself surrounded by objects as 
strange as if I had been transported to another planet, that I conceived the idea of 
devoting a portion of my attention to the mammalian class of its extraordinary fauna. 
The native black, while conducting me through the forest or among the park-like trees 
of the open plains, would often point out the pricking of an Opossum’s nails on the bark 
of a Eucalyptus or other tree, and indicate by his actions that in yonder hole, high up, 
was sleeping an Opossum, a Phalangista, or a Flying Petaurus. Even the objects brought 
to our bush-fires were enough to incite a desire for a more extended knowledge of 
Australia’s Mammals ; for numerous were the species of Kangaroos and Opossums that 
were nightly roasted and eaten by these children of nature. Perchance a half-charred 
log, or the heated hollow branch of a Eucalyptus, would send forth into the lap of one 
or other of the surrounding guests the Acrobates pygmceus, the white-footed Hapalotis, or 
b 
