IV PREFACE. 



With regard to the prospects of the ' Magazine of Natural History/ 

 the Editor indulges a hope that ultimately it may so far form an ex- 

 ception to the general rule, as to enable him to conduct it upon the 

 strength of its own resources, without feeling that its existence is de- 

 pendent upon fortuitous circumstances. If in the number of those 

 among whom it now circulates there be any who think that its columns 

 might supply a more regular and comprehensive report of what is 

 passing in the scientific world, the Editor can only plead the want of 

 power, and not that of inclination to supply this deficiency. After 

 being carried on without interruption for nine years under the super- 

 intendence of Mr. Loudon, the Magazine was threatened with the same 

 fate that has befallen some of its contemporaries, and though this 

 danger has been averted, the hours successfully devoted to that object 

 have only been such as could be snatched from leisure intervals of 

 more definite occupation. 



103, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, ^ 



Nov. 25, 1838. 



