38 
I travelled over CafFraria and several of the most remote 
parts of the Colony, I not only actively collected all the fishes 
I could observe, but I wrote detailed descriptions, and made 
drawings of every sort, with their natural colours ; but, charged 
by my Grovernment to establish a French Consulate at Siam, I 
extracted, before I left the Cape Colony, a short notice from my 
manuscript, and sent it for publication in June, 1858, to my 
late friend. Professor August Dumeril. Diiferent circumstances 
delayed, during my absence, the printing of my “ Memoire 
Sur les Poissons de L' Afrique Awstrale,” which only appeared 
at the beginning of 1861. It is in his seventh volume (1868) 
that Dr. Gunther quotes for the first time this publication, and 
does it in his usual style. I must say that I still believe that 
the study, during several years, of the fishes of a distant region 
cannot be entirely useless to science. In India, I continued my 
ichthyological labours. At Bangkock I collected the sorts of the 
great Mainam Eiver ; at Saigon, those of the Meklong ; and, 
during a more or less lengthened stay at Malacca, Sumatra Java, 
Ceylon, and Singapore, I described and sketched from nature over 
750 sorts. On my return to Europe, I began to put in order my 
voluminous notes, but having been obliged, on account of sickness, 
to interrupt my work, I was, on my recovery, struck with a most 
disagreeable surprise, in discovering that my servant had, for 
more than one month, used the sheets of paper on which I had 
bestowed so much time and labour to light the fires, and other 
parts of my learned lucubrations were discovered in tbe last 
place in the world where an author would be proud of finding 
his ■works. Totally disheartened, I disposed of my collection and 
drawings in favour of Professor Lacordaire, of the Liege 
University, another of my old friends, who has also lately been 
swept a'way before he could complete his great work on the 
Coleoptera Insects, and once more I devoted the whole of my time 
to Entomological researches. 
I had always since my arrival in the Colony, nine years ago, 
been struck by the want of a work on the fishes of Australia, 
and of Victoria in particular. In such a new country, vernacular 
names are far from possessing the same degree of fixity as they 
do in Europe ; and putting aside a dozen or two very common 
sorts, every fishmonger gives a diiferent name to the same 
