X PREFACE. 



Even could I have flattered myself that I had succeeded in producing "eminently 

 useful results," I fear this letter would have effectually damped any hopes of " pecuniary 

 reward or promotion," or other aid, which I might have formed ; but my friends were not 

 content that I should make bricks without straw, and, by dint of considerable exertion, they got 

 me a nominal appointment, so that my assistant-surgeon's pay ran on, while they endeavoured 

 to obtain the £300, required for the publication of my book, from the Government. 



It would be wearisome were I to narrate the history of their other efforts at length. In 

 vain the Presidents of the Royal Society and of the British Association, separately and con- 

 jointly, ofiicially and unofficially, solicited the Treasury ; in vain did I visit and write to, and I 

 fear, bore, numerous persons in authority about this unfortunate grant. It must be confessed 

 the business was troublesome enough while it lasted ; but, in looking back, I would fain 

 only remember with gratitude the zeal of the friends who aided me, and the long-suffering 

 courtesy of the various Government officials, who listened so attentively to the claims of that 

 Natural Science about which, unless I am greatly mistaken, they neither knew nor cared 

 very much. 



During the three years the contest lasted, 1 reckon that the Admiralty was good enough 

 to give me, in the form of pay, rather more than fifty pounds over the sum required, 

 although, with steady consistency, their Lordships from the first refused to enable me to 

 publish the work which they paid me for publishing. I by no means quarrel M'ith an 

 arrangement, which, although very annoying at the time, has been of the utmost service 

 to me; for when, in 1854, their Lordships, as I suppose, weary of our pertinacity, cut the 

 knot by caUing upon me to serve afloat, new prospects had. presented themselves, and, in 

 giving up my commission, I obtained the long-sought funds for publication — the adminis- 

 trators of the Government Grant no longer objecting, that the Admiralty was pledged to 

 supply its officers with funds for the publication of work done in its service. 



I offer my hearty thanks to the Government Grant Committee for this aid, and, in 

 conclusion, I must apologise to them and to the Ray Society — who two years ago under- 

 took to publish my book — for the delay which has occurred in bringing it out. I can 

 only plead the pressure of new and heavy official duties in palliation of my seeming 

 dilatoriness ; and I may add that, since 1850, so much has been done by the eminent German 

 observers, whose works are incessantly quoted in the following pages, that the literature of the 

 subject, slight enough when my observations were made, has attained considerable dimensions ; 

 and its study has retarded the progress of my book, as much as it has increased my 

 knowledge of the organization of the Oceanic Hydrozoa. As it is, I have been obliged 

 to omit the Medusidce, which were included in my original plan, and the illustrations of 

 whose organization are already engraved. I trust that they may yet some day see the light. 



