INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
This, I am aware, is a very imperfect resume of the Cheiroptera inhabiting Australia ; could I have ren- 
dered it more complete, I would have done so ; but it must be recollected that seventh-tenths of the country 
are yet unexplored. 
A mere glance at the globe which stands in every school-room will show how greatly the sea preponderates 
over the land of this planet. Like the land, the ocean is tenanted by many remarkable animals, certain 
groups of which exist in one hemisphere and are not found in the other ; and it is not often that even the 
great Cetaceans occur in both. Neither do the Seals: the equatorial region separates them most com- 
pletely ; that is, no species is common alike to the north and the south. I do not consider that either the 
Australian Cetacea or Phocidce have been well made out, and this certainly is the part of the mammalian 
fauna of that country of which we know the least. I have omitted the former altogether, but it will be seen 
that I have figured two of the latter ; these constitute two genera ( Stenorhynchus and Ar otocephalus') ; they 
both inhabit the shores and rocky islands of the southern portion of Australia, while the Dugong ( Halicore 
australis) is, as far as I am aware, a native of the east coast only. 
Whether the Cams Dingo be really indigenous, or has at some very remote period followed Man in his 
migrations, is a question on which naturalists are at variance. For my own part, I am inclined to the latter 
theory, as being the most philosophic mode of accounting for its presence there. That Man is the latest 
visitant to the soil of Australia there can be little doubt ; the country is far too sparsely provided with fruits 
and other substances necessary for his existence to favour a contrary hypothesis. 
In the following list of the Australian Mammals I shall refer to the volumes in which they are contained 
and to the plates on which they are respectively figured, and shall, moreover, give any additional information 
I may have acquired respecting them, together with an account of the new species which have been de- 
scribed by other writers, but which, from my not having been able to see examples, I have not figured. 
Order MAIISUPIATA. 
Section MONOTREMATA. 
Genus Ornithorhynchus, Blumenb. 
1. Ornithorhynchus anatinus ............. Vol. I. PL 1. 
Habitat. New South Wales and Tasmania. Victoria and South Australia ? 
Genus Echidna, Cue. 
2. Echidna hystrix ............... Vol. I. PL 2. 
Habitat. New South Wales, Victoria, the islands in Bass’s Straits. Southern and Western Australia ? 
3. Echidna setosa, Cuv. .............. Vol. I. PL 3. 
Habitat. Van Diemen’s Land. 
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