PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 



THE appearance of a second edition affords the author a pleasant 

 opportunity of thanking the reading public, and the Press, for 

 the kind way in which his endeavour to popularise the results 

 of modern Palaeontology has been received. There seem to be 

 fashions in all things even in sciences ; and perhaps the 

 wonderful advances we have witnessed of late years in the 

 physical sciences on the one hand, and in biological sciences on 

 the other, may have tended to throw Palaeontology somewhat 

 into the shade. Let us hope that it will not remain there long. 



A large number of illustrations have been added for the 

 present edition, besides additional matter here and there in the 

 text. Three of the plates have been redrawn. Plate IV. shows 

 the Ichthyosaurus as interpreted by the latest discovery from 

 Wiirtemberg. 



Plate XXXVII., besides containing a valuable portrait of the 

 late Sir Eichard Owen, gives another drawing of the Dinornis 

 skeleton. 



April, 1893. 

 The numbers of the Plates are those of the present Edition (1910). 



