INTRODUCTION, 



a desire to do justice to their labours, the conclusions 

 are most frequently equally my own. 



In determining the names of the species, I have 

 always acted on the only certain and just rule, — that 

 of priority, — unless the name first used was de- 

 cidedly objectionable, on account of its giving an 

 incorrect idea. In so doing, I have been obliged to 

 change some of the names employed by Mr. Alder 

 and Mr. Jeffreys, who, from a desire to make our 

 Fauna agree with the continental works which they 

 have studied, have been induced to adopt several of 

 the names given by French authors, although long 

 posterior to those applied to the same species by our 

 own most accurate observer and describer, Montagu. 

 The work of this excellent zoologist (when we con- 

 sider the period of its publication, and the difficulties 

 which the author had to encounter from the pre- 

 judices then in force) deserves to be placed in a very 

 high rank ; and the marked attention which he paid 

 to the animals of the species that had come under his 

 observation proves that his views were far superior 

 to those of his age. Mr. Alder gives as his reason for 

 adopting these more modern French names in pre- 

 ference, that they are almost exclusively used on 

 the Continent — by which, I presume, he means in 

 France; for, if we study the works published in 

 different European countries, and especially their 

 Faunas, we shall find that each of them has its own 

 peculiar favourite, whose arrangement and nomen- 

 clature the naturalists of that country are most in- 

 clined to adopt. Thus, though the names given by 

 Draparnaud are commonly used in France, those of 

 Miiller are almost exclusively adopted in Germany 



