prp:face. 



Library being decidedly weak in scientific books, even of our 

 own country, between 1820, the year when the library of Sir 

 Joseph Banks ceased to grow, and 1850, when the provisions 

 of the Copyright Act became somewhat of a reality. 



During the time this book has been in preparation, my plans 

 have perforce undergone considerable alteration. Instead of a 

 few hundreds of titles additional to Pritzel, I have named nearly 

 six thousand main-titles, exclusive of the new editions of pre- 

 viously published works. It is difficult to preserve consistency 

 during so long a stretch of time, and when the original plans 

 have required so much alteration ; I believe, however, that I 

 have not greatly erred in that respect. The Guide is meant 

 to be SUGGESTIVE, not EXHAUSTIVE ; it does not claim to be 

 a comi^lete bibliography of the subject, but to indicate the 

 general drift of the 9,000 and odd books enumerated. The short 

 titles will, it is believed, give the scope of each book, eked out 

 by its sectional position ; works mentioned in Pritzel can be 

 readily identified by reference thereto, and when not in that 

 authority, the titles are given at rather greater length, espe- 

 cially in the awkward class of anonymous publications. I 

 have shortened the titles rather by omission of parts than by 

 mutilation, and have tried to give such abbreviated titles as 

 would be used in common parlance, or casual * reference. In 

 well-known books a single word, or even less than a single 

 word, sviffices ; to the initiated " DC. Prod." takes the place 

 of two or more lines of print ; if I were to cite " Mueller's 

 Befruchtung durch Insekten," no one would mistake my 

 meaning, although that citation is a fragment of the title, 

 without any hint of the suppression of some of the words in 

 it, and must not be taken as a sample of my method. 



I have also given the initials only of each author, unless, as 



