communicated to learned societies. lu cases of question of priority, 

 the right depends, of course, on the period of publication ; but this 

 is sometimes with great difficulty ascertainable, and motives of con- 

 venience have dictated the sequence adopted. 



Perhaps some will be disposed to believe that the compiler has sinned 

 in redundancy rather than deficiency in this bibliography. The evils 

 of the former are, however, easily remedied, while those of the latter 

 must leave the consulter in more or less doubt. Many popular works 

 have been catalogued where original information of even slight value 

 was contained, and when such works were among the earliest published 

 on the regions.in question. Besides those enumerated, works on Cali- 

 fornia, too numerous to mention, contain incidental information (very 

 rarely of any original value, however) respecting the fishes and fisheries 

 of that State; and a number on the British possessions belong to the 

 same category. Among those relative to British Columbia and Van- 

 couver's Island worthy to be mentioned, but not to be particularized, 

 are the volumes of Wm. Carew Hazlitt (1858), J. Desford Pemberton 

 (1860), Duncan George Forbes Macdonald (1862), Capt. C. E. Barrett 

 Lennard (1862), Alexander Eattray (1862), Com. E. C. Mayne (1862), 

 G. M. Sproat (1868), Francis Poole (1872), and Capt. W. F. Butler 

 (1873). 



The titles of the Government publications are taken from a manu- 

 script compilation embracing notices of all the reports published by 

 the General and State governments on scientific explorations, and 

 intended to be more particular than the present work. They are 

 retained with the bars ( | ), indicating the distribution on the title- 

 pages of the lines, etc. 



Several societies have, or have had, the custom of publishing com- 

 munications, sometimes of an elaborate and extended nature, without 

 any titles. This strange and senseless mode of procedure seems to 

 have originated in some freak or affectation of modesty on the part of 

 authors, perhaps, rather than a deliberate intention to shirk labor or 

 confuse matters. Confusion and trouble to others are nevertheless the 

 result of this vicious negligence, and a consequence is an ignoring of 

 the papers thus unentitled or an irreconcilable variation of titles in 

 different bibliographies. Whether the custom originates with authors 

 or not, the assumption of it is discreditable to the editor or editors of 

 the publications adopting it. A number of the papers here recorded 

 belong to this category of the unentitled or disentitled : the titles fol- 



