iv Introduction. 



by the fact that amongst all those just alluded to there is not 

 one, at least in England, of this class. — Pudet hcec oppro- 

 bria nobis et did potuisse, — we will not finish the line — 

 the potuisse refelli we hope will be found in the pre- 

 sent work ; and that it may be we look with confidence 

 to our fellow countrymen and to learned foreigners for 

 the benefit of their assistance in our arduous undertaking. 

 Without such assistance indeed, neither ourselves nor, we 

 think, any other set of men would be bold enough to enter on 

 the task — for the undivided attention of many would be in- 

 competent to it; and even were it otherwise, undivided 

 attention is in the power of few — certainly not in that of 

 either of the conductors of this journal. But it is time to 

 particularize the objects of it, from which our friends and 

 readers, and the scientific world at large, will understand 

 the course we mean to pursue, and the nature of the aids we 

 solicit from their liberality and patronage. 



Original Memoirs and Monographs will take the prece- 

 dence in our pages. The subjects of Zoological Classifica- 

 tion — Comparative Anatomy — particular Classes, Families, 

 Genera, and Species — Animal Chemistry — Palaeontography 

 and Nomenclature are amongst the most important. The 

 first is obviously dependant on a sufficient knowledge of the 

 structure of animal bodies, and the analogies that may be 

 traced in this respect from the least to the most perfect, 

 whence Comparative Anatomy, on which that knowledge 

 depends, claims a very high rank in Zoological researches. 



We particularly request our correspondents, foreign and 

 domestic, to keep this subject constantly in view, convinced 

 that no arrangement can be sound and stable, which is not 

 founded on that important science. It has, at length, in 

 great measure rescued one branch of natural history from 

 the confusion and absurdity in which, whilst the structure 

 of the habitation only and not that of the inhabitant was 

 considered, its arrangements were involved. Conchology is 



