AUSTRALIAN INSECTS. BY WALTER W. FROGGATT, F.L.S., Government Entomologist, New South Wales. Member of the Association of Economic Entomologists, U.S. America; Member of the Société Entomologique de France; Member of Council, Linnean Society of N.S. Wales, and N.S. Wales Naturalists’ Club. With 37 Plates, containing 270 Figures, also 180 text-blocks. [Illustration] Sydney: WILLIAM BROOKS & COMPANY, LIMITED, Printers and Publishers, 17 Castlereagh Street. PREFACE. There have been so many enquiries from people in all parts of Australia, as well as from visitors from other countries, for a book dealing with our insects, that the writer thinks that the time has come when a Text Book dealing exclusively with Australian Entomology will be well received, both at home and abroad, by all those interested in this subject. The difficulty has been to write in a popular style so as to interest the general reader, and induce him to further follow his studies of the wonders of Natural History, yet at the same time to define the characteristics of the insects described and give some idea of their classification, so that it will not lose its value as a Text Book to the student while enlarging the circle of its readers. Since the year 1770, when Sir Joseph Banks captured the first diamond beetle on the sandy shores of Botany Bay, the majority of our insects have been described in rare old English or foreign publications, the Zoology of Voyages and Travels, or the Transactions and Proceedings of Scientific Societies consisting of many hundreds of volumes written in many different languages. Many of these original descriptions, written in English or Latin, are so brief and obscure that without seeing the type they are quite unintelligible even to the trained entomologist, and therefore are absolutely of no value to the beginner. Most of the earlier describers of Australian insects confined their attention to beetles, moths, and butterflies. Among the few exceptions are Westwood, who has identified himself with insects in nearly all the orders, and as he figured many of them (often in colours), there is no trouble in determining his species; and Walker, who also described many unique Australian insects (chiefly in the British Museum Catalogues); but his often vague descriptions, without details or figures, have puzzled all entomologists who have not had access to his types.