due to the Trustees, to J. E. Gray, and G. R. Gray, Esqs., of the British 
Museum ; and to the authorities of the Linnean and Zoological Societies 
of London, the Royal Museums of Berlin, Leyden and Paris, and the 
Museum at Sydney. I am also considerably indebted to my friend 
W. C. L. Martin, Esq., author of many valuable works and papers on 
natural history, for the readiness with which his varied literary attain- 
ments and critical acumen have at all times been rendered, whenever 
solicited, to enhance the accuracy of my labours. 
At the conclusion of my “ Birds of Europe,” I had the pleasing duty 
of stating that nearly the whole of the plates had been lithographed by 
my amiable wife. Would that I had the happiness of recording a 
similar statement with regard to the present work ; but such, alas ! is 
not the case, it having pleased the All-wise Disposer of Events to re- 
move her from this sublunary world within one short year after our 
return from Australia, during her sojourn in which country an immense 
mass of drawings, both ornithological and botanical, were made by her 
inimitable hand and pencil, and which has enabled Mr. H. C. Richter, 
to whom, after her lamented death, the execution of the plates was en- 
trusted, to perform his task in a manner highly satisfactory to myself, 
and I trust equally so to the Subscribers. The colouring, as in the 
case of the “ Birds of Europe,” and my other works, has been entirely 
executed by Mr. Bayfield, to whose unwearied exertions and punctu- 
ality I must not fail to bear testimony, as well as to the minute accuracy 
with which his labours have been performed. The printing of the 
plates, by Messrs. Hullmandel and Walton, and the letter-press, by 
Messrs. R. and J. E. Taylor, has also been equally satisfactory. 
And L cannot refrain from speaking in the highest terms of my 
assistant, Mr. Edwin C. Prince, who has been with me from the com- 
mencement of my various works. I left him in charge of the whole of 
my affairs during my absence from England, with a perfect conviction 
that he would zealously exert himself for my interest, and the confidence 
I reposed in him has been fully realized, not only during my absence, 
but during the long period of eighteen years. 
It was my most anxious wish that the unique and perfect collection 
of Australian Birds, forming the originals of the present work, should 
have found a resting-place in the National Museum of this country, 
inasmuch as it comprised examples of both sexes of nearly every known 
species in various stages of plumage, each carefully labelled with its 
correct scientific appellation, the date when and the place where killed, 
the sex ascertained by dissection, and the colouring of the soft 
parts; besides which, it comprised the finest specimens I had been able 
to procure during the long period of ten years, collected together at the 
expense of more than two thousand pounds, and at the cost of three 
valuable lives, namely, that of Mr. Gilbert above referred to ; that of 
Mr. Johnson Drummond, who was killed by a native while seeking for 
specimens in Western Australia; and that of a fine young man, one of 
the attendants assigned to me by Sir John Franklin, who was acciden- 
tally killed by the explosion of a gun he was removing from a boat 
when landing on one of the islands in Bass’s Straits. Regretting that 
I could not afford to make a donation of it, I addressed a letter to 
J. E. Gray, Esq., the chief Zoological officer of the British Museum, 
