PREFACE 



TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



SINCE the publication of Ellis's Essay on Corallines in the 

 year 1755, no separate work has appeared in illustration of 

 our native Zoophytes. In the meantime, and more especially 

 within these few last years, a much more accurate knowledge 

 of their structure has been attained, and many species have 

 been added to the list ; and it has been my object to give 

 here an account of these discoveries, to connect them with 

 what had been previously made known, and to combine the 

 whole under a system more in harmony with the anatomy 

 of the objects than has hitherto been done. If I have suc- 

 ceeded in bringing within a convenient volume, the materials 

 that at present lie scattered through many expensive and 

 miscellaneous ones, some of them too of difficult acquisition, 

 I may, perhaps, claim the merit of having conferred no in- 

 considerable benefit on the student, even should his future 

 studies convince him that I have not forwarded or enriched 

 this particular branch of natural history by any novelties. 

 Originality indeed has been less my aim than fulness and 

 accuracy of compilation ; but I have endeavoured to qualify 

 myself for this apparently humble task, by many personal 

 researches and observations on the species that are found 

 in my own neighbourhood, under the conviction that a com- 

 piler will rarely succeed in giving a correct idea or representa- 



