8 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



What success my book may have I know not, I can 

 only hope that its reception will be favourable ; 



" 'Tis not in mortals to command success, 

 But (I'll endeavour to) deserve it." 



and, should the public deem that I have worthily fulfilled 

 my promise, I shall be content with whatever praise or 

 favour be awarded me. Thus, armed with a good inten- 

 tion, I feel that I have chosen one of those subjects wherein 

 I take the public's health to be much concerned, and 

 wherein, though I may not be able to inform men more 

 than they know, yet perhaps I may give them occasion to 

 consider more than they do. 



Another reason for my undertaking this work has been 

 the long felt want of a combined TEXT-BOOK for the 

 student of Zoology, and a BOOK OF REFERENCE for the 

 general reader, which, with all due deference to the reader's 

 opinion, I claim mine to be. 



True, there are able relative articles in our Magazines, 

 and also Books replete with scientific information, written 

 by some of the foremost Professors of the day ; but the 

 former are merely a conglomeration of curtailed extracts 

 from standard works instructive, certainly, but as cer- 

 tainly unsatisfactory, on account of their incompleteness 

 while, on the other hand, although exhaustive, the books 

 are so only in the scientific branch of the subject in 

 question, ignoring that more general information which 

 has long been looked for by a large majority of "Anxious 

 Inquirers," or where they do touch upon the matter it is 

 only in a disappointingly abbreviated form. Hence, I feel 

 justified in saying that what has been a long felt want to 

 me has proved the same to others, at least, I infer so from 

 the complaint of one of three letters which some time since 



