TRAÎ^SLATOR'S PREFACE. 



I UNDERTOOK the publication of a translation of Ecker^s 

 ' Anatomie des Frosches ' at the suggestion of Professor A. 

 Gamgee while I was working under his superintendence in the 

 physiological laboratory of the Owens College. The work was 

 subsequently accepted by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, as 

 one of the series of ^Foreign Biological Memoirs/ published by them. 

 Early in the progress of the work it became evident that a mere 

 translation would be unsatisfactory, and that it would be desirable 

 to recast and modify several portions of the book. It was deemed 

 advisable to give greater completeness to the work by descriptions 

 of the minute structure of the several organs. For these purposes 

 the appearance of the work has been unavoidably delayed. 



I have done my best to bring the book up to date by including 

 the results of recent researches, to which I have added many facts 

 derived from my own personal investigations. All such additions 

 are enclosed within square brackets [ ]. More than a hundred 

 new figures, of which one-third are original, have been added ; and 

 copious, though it is feared still incomplete, lists of references to 

 frog-literature have been drawn up. By these additions the size 

 of the book has been considerably increased. 



In the several sections into which the book is divided the following 

 points may be more particularly noticed : — 



Sect. I. The Bones and Joints. The nomenclature of Parker 

 and Bettany has been adopted throughout. 



Sect. II. The Muscles. This section remains in its original form. 



Sect. III. The Nervous System. The chapters on the central 



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