PREFACE Vil 
He will recognise by a perusal of the mere titles of what 
has been written, that no manual of this size could cope 
with all the branches of the subject, without the certainty 
of becoming a dry and repulsive catalogue. Even in what 
has been here laboriously put together the gentle reader 
is requested to remember that definitions are like the 
sermon which the preacher was forced to deliver, but to 
which, he reminded his hearers, they were under no sort 
of compulsion to listen. A time comes to the student 
when he scans every word of a definition with eager 
interest, but till then it will do him no harm to pass it 
over with cursory eyes and a light heart. 
In a volume of the International Series it would have 
been inappropriate to devote to the British fauna more 
than its proportional space, but I have thought that it 
would be neither unfair nor uninteresting to mention at 
least the names of all the British species, so far as it has 
been possible for me to collect them from and correct 
them by the latest and best authorities. 
One personal matter remains to be noticed. It was 
long the intention of Dr. Henry Woodward, of the British 
Museum, to publish in this Series a ‘ History of Recent and 
Fossil Crustacea.’ The continual pressure of other engage- 
ments has prevented him from accomplishing the con- 
genial task. That, nevertheless, the results of his un- 
rivalled knowledge of the extinct forms will sooner or 
later be gathered into a compendium for general use 
should be taken for granted. The other materials which 
he had collected for his purposed work, relating principally 
to the characters of the living organism, are still in reserve 
