depreciated if not entirely distorted.

As I would wish to establish a sort of general confidence with any chance
reader of these lines who, like myself, finds no need for exaggeration
in the chronicling of observations, being well aware that Nature with the
ease of consummate art outwits the wisest and laughs at the blotches of
the boldest impressionist, it seems but common politeness to explain that
though the Island may be romantic, the art of romancing is alien from its
shores, albeit (as some one has hinted) that in imagination reverently
applied lies the higher truth.

The distance from the mainland is not so great as to deprive the Island
of generally distinctly Australian characteristics. It was, no doubt, in
the remote past, merely a steep and high range of hills separated from
other hills and mountains by plains and lagoons. Delicate land shells,
salt-hating frogs, and subtle snakes are among the living testifiers to
past connection with Australia, but while all the animals and nearly all
the birds native to the island are common on the mainland, several
mainland types are conspicuously absent.

If, therefore, the birds and mammals seem in these literal chronicles to
have little ways of their own, may they not owe obedience to true and
abiding circumstances--a kind of unavoidable fate--due to isolation? It
would indeed be singular if an island so long separated from Australia as
to possess no marsupial did not impress certain idiosyncrasies upon its
fauna and flora. It would be absurd to contend that as a rule, the
untamed creatures carry any marks of distinction, but I have had the
opportunity of studying facts of which I have never been fortunate to
have confirmation either by reading or by "swapping lies" with other
students of Nature.