Reptiles.  Plate 3. 
Hydrus stokesii. 
Day & Haghe, Lithographers to the Queen.

Reptiles.  Plate 4. 
Gonionotus plumbeus. 
W. Wing Litho.  C. Hullmandel’s Patent.

INSECTS.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figures 1, 1a, 1b and 1c.  Megacephala Australasiae,
Hope.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figures 2 and 2a.  Aenigma cyanipenne, Hope.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figures 3, 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d, 3e and 3f.  Calloodes grayianus, White.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figures 4, and 4a.  Biphyllocera kirbyana, White.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figure 5.  Cetonia (Diaphonia) notabilis.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figure 6.  Stigmodera elegantula.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figure 7.  Stigmodera erythrura.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figure 8.  Stigmodera saundersii, Hope.

Insects.  Plate 1.  Figures 9, 9a, and 9b.  Clerus ? obesus.

...

CHAPTER 1.1.  INTRODUCTION.

Objects of the Voyage.  The Beagle commissioned.  Her former career.  Her first Commander.  Instructions from the Admiralty and the Hydrographer.  Officers and Crew.  Arrival at Plymouth.  Embark Lieutenants Grey and Lushington’s Exploring Party.  Chronometric Departure.  Farewell glance at Plymouth.  Death of King William the Fourth.

For more than half a century, the connection between Great Britain and her Australian possessions has been one of growing interest; and men of the highest eminence have foreseen and foretold the ultimate importance of that vast continent, over which, within the memory of living man, the roving savage held precarious though unquestioned empire.

Of the Australian shores, the North-western was the least known, and became, towards the close of the year 1836, a subject of much geographical speculation.  Former navigators were almost unanimous in believing that the deep bays known to indent a large portion of this coast, received the waters of extensive rivers, the discovery of which would not only open a route to the interior, but afford facilities for colonizing a part of Australia, so near our East Indian territories, as to render its occupation an object of evident importance.

His Majesty’s Government therefore determined to send out an expedition to explore and survey such portions of the Australian coasts as were wholly or in part unknown to Captains Flinders and King.

H.M.  Sloop Beagle.