OUR COMPLIMENTS TO OUR READERS. 



<j|HE completion of our Fourth Volume with 

 the issue of this forty-eighth Number, 

 gives us an opportunity, which we canuot 

 afford to lose, of saying a few words to 

 our friends and supporters. When our 

 first Number made its appearance it was 

 almost alone amongst periodicals devoted to popular 

 Natural History : since that period several others have 

 been commenced. To us this is a source of grati- 

 fication, and by no means one of regret : there is 

 room enough for all. The increase of journals and 

 the widening influence of Natural History pursuits, 

 have apparently kept pace with each other ; whilst our 

 own has steadily and progressively found its way into 

 the remote corners of the world, almost wherever the 

 English language is spoken, and never shown a tendency to fall back 

 from the eminence it attained at the first. 



If we may judge from the opinions expressed, not only by our 

 correspondents but by scientific men with whom Ave have come in 

 contact, a steady and continuous improvement has characterized our 

 " Gossip " from its first to its forty-eighth number. If this be true, 

 and we believe it is, it promises well also for the future. The spirit 

 of progress bids us hope. 



The occasional hints and suo-erestions we receive are evidence of 

 the interest which many of our correspondents possess in our success. 

 Of course we cannot adopt all the suggestions, but they may often 

 have a salutary influence. Those who urge us to be less gossiping and 

 more technical, or as it is sometimes phrased, " take a higher standing/' 

 undoubtedly mean well, but they altogether mistake what we are fain 

 to regard as our " mission." It is not our object or ambition to become 

 what is called a " scientific journal." Ours is a " Gossip," and it is 

 our aim to gossip freely, in as untechnical a manner as possible, on 



