6 



physiology, and other branches, other journals sprang up, and 

 specialization became necessary ; so that the scope of the Annals has 

 now come to be largely restricted to Systematic Zoology (including 

 Palaeontology), with, however, a considerable element of " Biology " 

 (in the narrow sense) or Ecology, and a few structural or morpho- 

 logical papers. As was hinted above, no zoological journal at the 

 present day can possibly match, for interest and variety, the Annals 

 during its first fifty years. No one nowadays is likely to sit down 

 to read through one of the monthly numbers for pleasure ; one or 

 two articles will be all that will capture any single reader's interest ; 

 the rest will remain there for reference when required by his work 

 or his further studies. 



Our journal makes a cosmopolitan appeal. It can still be said, 

 as it was said more than fifty years ago, that " even foreign naturahsts 

 seek admission for their writings " to the Annals. Last year (1931) 

 the journal opened its pages to eleven American authors, of whom 

 several contributed more than one paper, T. D. A. Cockerell's 

 series " Descriptions and Records of Bees ", begun in 1905, reaching 

 No. CXXIX. and C. P. Alexander's series on the Tipulidse 

 No. XLIX. ; to several French, Japanese, and Indian contributors ; 

 and to one or more Russian, Austrian, Hungarian, Finnish, German, 

 and Norwegian zoologists, as well as to workers in other parts of the 

 Empire — South Africa and Australia. 



The value of Systematic Zoology is generally understood, though 

 perhaps still occasionally hable to depreciation. The first requisite 

 in zoological work of any kind — morphological, economic, or any 

 other — is to know what one is dealing with ; before we can so much 

 as begin on any other problem, we must know what our animals are — 

 must have them described, named, and classified ; and Systematic 

 Zoology, which does this, is thus the bed-rock on which all other 

 zoological research ultimately rests. Such work stands for all time ; 

 the first adequate description of a new animal is something which 

 can never be duphcated, never repeated ; it is there, once for all, 

 as something to be appealed to, something that cannot, by the rules 

 under which the systematist works, be superseded. It may seem 

 to be of little interest at the moment ; it may not be recalled for 

 years ; but it will be required, and will come into its own when much 

 work in other branches has become obsolete through change of 

 fashion or improved technique, or has been shown to be useless for 

 any further advance. 



Of the Annals, then, forming as it does a storehouse of this 

 essential knowledge, always valid and always in demand, it can 

 with absolute certainty be said that the volumes are not only 

 valuable to-day, but that their value increases as time goes on, 

 and adds successive numbers to the imposing series of the last 

 hundred years. 



John Stephenson. 



