INTRODUCTION. 
Proressor M‘Coy’s Paleontological work is now complete; and I have, at present, nothing 
more to add on the Paleozoic Fauna of England, so far as it is illustrated by the Collection 
in the Woodwardian Museum. Had he not been called away to his new duties in Australia 
sooner than he had anticipated, he would, I believe, have added a few pages, in the 
form of an Appendix, with woodcuts and descriptions of some new species which have 
found a place in the Museum since the Second Fasciculus was published. The new 
species would, however, have been few in number, and would not in any way have 
affected the general conclusions which may be drawn from the species described in the 
following work. 
When we parted in September last, I promised my friend to draw up a Synopsis 
of the British Paleozoic System, so far as it appeared to have been made out on good 
physical evidence; and to put his work in such co-ordination with my own, that each 
specimen might (with some very limited exceptions) be referred to its right place in the 
British Palzozoic series, to be laid down by myself on the positive evidence of sections. 
This done, the whole work was to be published without further delay. 
Since my last return to Cambridge, I have been so much interrupted by a lingering 
chronic malady that my promised task has made but little progress; and instead of a Synopsis 
based on numerous sections, derived chiefly from the Cambrian, Silurian, and Cumbrian 
mountains, I at length hasten to the press (constrained to this step by a duty I owe 
to Professor M*Coy) with little more, by way of introduction, than a corrected and enlarged 
Tabular View—resembling that which was prefixed to the Second Fasciculus of the Cam- 
bridge Paleozoic Fossils. 
I trust, however, so soon as my health is re-established, and the more pressing 
duties of the Academic Term are over, to commence a Synopsis in such a form that it 
may serve its proper purpose of an introduction to my friend’s great work; and in some 
measure justify the title-page he has left behind him, which was struck off before my 
return. I accept this title-page; regarding it as a pledge, on my part, given in good hope, 
to complete my task without any unnecessary delay: and the Synopsis may be hereafter 
either bound up with Professor M°Coy’s “British Palzeozoic Fossils,” or used as an inde- 
pendent geological Essay*. 
* Should any one object to the appearance of my name in the title-page of a work so essentially paleontological, 
I may reply, that I have not been a perfectly free agent in the matter. In the formation of the Museum, during a period 
of thirty-six years, in the arrangement of the Paleontological pertion of it by Professor M°Coy, and in the artistical 
