PREFACE. 



NOTICE. 



The account of the CoUection of Fishes in the British Museum 

 having extended heyond the limits indicated on the title-pages of 

 the first three volumes, it has become necessary to give a title 

 referring to the whole of the work. Therefore, separate title- 

 pages, which, in binding the work, are to be placed at the head 

 of their respective volumes, have been issued ^vith the present 

 volume. 



" No general account of the Chromides and of the Anacanthini has 

 been given for the last fifty years, and at that time only a small 

 number of species were known. Therefore, although I believe that 

 this volume wiU be particularly useful to zoologists, I must ask their 

 indulgence for the imperfection of a work in a field which hitherto 

 has been so much neglected. The total number of species in this 



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