

PREFACE. 



Twenty -four monthly numbers of the second series of the ' Maga- 

 zine of Natural History' are now before the public, and from their 

 contents a tolerably fair estimate may be formed of the character which 

 the work is likely to maintain, in that portion of our periodical literature 

 devoted to science, — and the degree of confidence it is entitled to from 

 those who contribute to its pages. 



The Editor willingly renews the conditional pledge held out in 1837, 

 with regard to its continuation, and in one respect he may do so with 

 greatly increased confidence, since the risk of an inadequate supply of 

 communications, is a crisis which no longer threatens the Magazine, 

 although one which undoubtedly existed about the time the change in 

 the Editorship took place. Altogether indeed the circumstances under 

 which the publication of the present series was determined on were 

 most inauspicious. The Editor was unknown even by report to the 

 subscribers : several of the more valuable Contributors had seceded to 

 establish the « Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' whilst another por- 

 tion of them had united to establish a rival periodical, under the falla- 

 cious expectation that it would prove a source of pecuniary emolument ; 

 and no lack of solicitations and tempting proposals was wanting to win 

 over the few who yet stood by Mr. Loudon. In this position of 

 affairs, to have succeeded in carrying the Magazine forward and pro- 

 curing for it the favourable opinion of men of undoubted scientific 

 eminence, is a result that cannot be otherwise than gratifying to the 

 Editor. His labor, it is true, might in a pecuniary sense, have been 

 otherwise more profitably employed ; for the encouragement bestowed 

 in this country upon scientific periodicals is so slight, that if the 

 question of remuneration were entertained for a moment on the part 

 of those who are engaged in them, it would be fatal to the existence of 

 any English journal, on the pages of which Zoology forms a leading 

 feature. Yet it is this class of works that is turned to for information 

 upon every new discovery in science, — which is so eagerly had recourse 

 to when the result of individual observation or research, requires rapid 

 and universal publicity, and by which a medium of common inter- 

 course and communication is established between the cultivators of 

 science in every quarter of the globe. 



