18 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
VoL. I. 
land, and suggests an ample field for the Field Naturalists’ 
Club to cultivate. 
NOTE. — Writing in this connection I would use this 
occasion for bespeaking the interest of tlie n. embers of the 
Club in urging the preservation of this remarkable animal — 
the Dugong (Halicore australis), which feeding in shallow 
water, partaking of a special plant [Halofhila) growing 
therein, and increasing at a very slow rate, might be readily 
exterminated by the hand of man, like another sirenid, 
the great extinct Sea Cow of Berring Island (Rhytina Stelleri) 
has been, if its capture were once deemed commercially 
profitable. The oil from the whole of the Dugongs of our 
coast w'ould not keep a single up-to-date soap works going for 
a week, to allude to the use to which it is now proposed to 
put the animal. Unfortunately this opportunity cannot 
be further embraced to plead the cause of our native 
animals — both bird and beast — whose extermination in 
so many cases is threatened by ignorant and rapacious 
man. 
Insects. ■ 
Linnseus in his division of animals, Insecta, included 
not only those forms that we now distinguish as such, but 
the Myriapoda, Arachnids, and Crustaceans also, it being 
equivalent to the Arthropoda of more modern systematists. 
Tlie possession of a body composed of successive rings, 
and limbs of a series of joints, comprising the characters 
of the class, besides these already mentioned. 
The principal divisions of insects as were then under- 
stood, i.e., small animals lacking blood, had already been 
recognised by Aristotle, and by his disciple and successor, 
Theophrastus ; and, moreover, a classification had been put 
forward by Aldrovandus, who included worms, and even 
star-fish in the group. 
The English naturalists, Ray^ and Willoughby, of the 
seventeenth century, introduced to public notice through 
their writings, systematic arrangements of insects, in vdiich 
for the first time regard was had to the transformation 
they undergo for providing characters. 
Swammerdam (Historia Insectorum, Gen“. 1669) wholly 
relied on this character, and on the features presented by 
the larval forms ; a classification that from the obscure 
distinguishing principles on which it was based, being thus 
arrived at, that was impracticable for application by the 
work-a-day naturalist, although a natural method of arrange- 
ment. 
Linnseus’ classification was an improvement on those 
that had gone before. Absence {Altera) or presence of 
wings, and their number ; the whole (Coleoptera) or partial 
{Hemiptera) opacity of the fore-ones ; the presence of scales 
