INTRODUCTION. xi 
When Professor M:Coy had made out sixteen species of Graptolites, and arranged them 
(early in 1849) in the order in which they still remain in our Museum, they became open to 
the public. Several of those from the Moffat group were new; and I urged him more than 
once to describe and figure them for the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. But he 
refused to do so; stating that they would appear in their right place in the First Fasciculus, 
and little thinking at that time of the long delay in its publication, or of the great labour 
that awaited him before he could complete his description of the Radiata. He gave me, 
however, a revised list of the species, which was read before the British Association in 1850, 
along with my descriptive sketch of the Moffat group, and of some other portions of the 
southern chain of Scotland*. 
After that Meeting, a good series of Graptolites was collected from the Moffat group, and 
was published in the Journal of the Geological Society of London. I mention this in no wish 
to throw blame onany one. The long delay in the publication of the Cambridge work was no 
reason for arresting the progress of Geology. I have however given these facts to secure my 
friend from the risk of blame; and at the same time to prove, that in this branch of Paleonto- 
logy he had not been treading in the track of any previous observer; but rather had taken 
the lead and pointed out to others the road of discovery. Had he not published one or two 
new species, long after the time when I had urged him to publish the entire series of the 
Graptolites in our Museum, he might have lost his whole credit for the classification and 
arrangement which he had made, as before stated, in 1849. 
In the Advertisement to the Second Fasciculus (p. vii.) I have alluded to a remarkable 
muscular apparatus in Brachiopoda, the use of which in enabling the animal to open its 
shell was first discovered by Professor M’Coy; although published, in the preceding year, 
by Mr Woodward. While making this statement I did not mean to throw any blame on 
my friend Mr Woodward. He had described in the Introduction to his “Manual of Recent 
and Fossil Shells” (p. 8) the function of this peculiar apparatus; and he had done so without 
note or comment; neither claiming the discovery as his own, nor knowing, at the time, who 
had the first claim to it. In an elementary work he was not called upon to discuss such a 
point as this: and I may add, that Mr Woodward had not been in correspondence with 
Professor M‘*Coy, or seen the recent arrangements of the Cambridge Museum, or knew the 
progress of the Second Fasciculus. 
That the parenthetical sentence in the Advertisement, where Mr Woodward’s name is 
mentioned, had not been more clearly expressed I much regret. My object in writing it was 
not to throw blame on any one; but to save Professor M‘Coy from the imputation of blame, for 
having published as his own what had been published before by another. It would indeed 
have been great injustice, on my part, to have imputed any blame to Mr Woodward for not 
knowing, when he printed his “Manual,” the contents of another work which had not been 
published, and with the author of which he had not been in correspondence. This explanation 
is certainly due to my friend Mr Woodward, and I now give it at his request. 
* Transactions of the Sections, p. 103 to p. 107. 
