PREFACE V1L 



He will recognise by a perusal of the mere titles of what 

 has been written, that no manual of this size could cope 

 with all the branches of the subject, without the certainty 

 of becoming a dry and repulsive catalogue. Even in what 

 has been here laboriously put together the gentle reader 

 is requested to remember that definitions are like the 

 sermon which the preacher was forced to deliver, but to 

 which, he reminded his hearers, they were under no sort 

 of compulsion to listen. A time conies to the student 

 when he scans every word of a definition with eager 

 interest, but till then it will do him no harm to pass it 

 over with cursory eyes and a light heart. 



In a volume of the International Series it would have 

 been inappropriate to devote to the British fauna more 

 than its proportional space, but I have thought that it 

 would be neither unfair nor uninteresting to mention at 

 least the names of all the British species, so far as it has 

 been possible for me to collect them from and correct 

 them by the latest and best authorities. 



One personal matter remains to be noticed. It was 

 long the intention of Dr. Henry Woodward, of the British 

 Museum, to publish in this Series a ' History of Recent and 

 Fossil Crustacea.' The continual pressure of other engage- 

 ments has prevented him from accomplishing the con- 

 genial task. That, nevertheless, the results of his un- 

 rivalled knowledge of the extinct forms will sooner or 

 later be gathered into a compendium for general use 

 should be taken for granted. The other materials which 

 he had collected for his purposed work, relating principally 

 to the characters of the living organism, are still in reserve- 



