20 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



The volume whence the latter paragraph of the above 

 extract is taken, was published in 1863, and the reader will 

 agree with me in saying that, had that able author lived at 

 the present time he would have had no need to lament a 

 scarcity of readers of works of science. In this extra- 

 ordinarily advanced, and ever more and more rapidly 

 advancing Scientific Age, it seems almost out of place to 

 quote a paragraph of such tendency, but I have done so 

 simply to show how wonderful has been the progress of 

 Science even since 1863. To say nothing of the Zoological 

 Works published since then, and those that are being 

 published almost every week ; Zoology, in all its branches, 



is taught in our colleges and in many of our schools. 







If, then, so happily resultant since the above period, 

 or a decade or two earlier, would it not teach us a profitable 

 lesson to look upon the other side also ? Assuredly so. In- 

 deed, I think "The Trials and Triumphs of Zoology" would 

 form a highly interesting volume, more enthralling than a 

 sensational novel, because more truthful to Nature, and 

 infinitely more instructive because Nature would be the 

 Teacher : but I will not threaten my reader with the task 

 of wading through such a voluminous history; I will, 

 simply, in the words of the translator of Milne Edwards' 

 deservedly famous Manual of Zoology, give him a brief 

 sketch of that branch of Natural History which has 

 attained to such sublime place and glorious consummation 

 among the Sciences, in the hope that it may serve a higher 

 purpose than merely to interest him. 



" Addressed to professional students (the Manual] and 

 yet not exclusively so, who, partially educated, as the case 

 may be, are about to qualify themselves for embarking in 

 some one or other of the great professions which form the 



