jfeforuarp 



VI 



THE publication of the ninth and penultimate volume 

 of the Cambridge Natural History (London : The toest 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1899) marks the work on 

 approaching end of a work containing the Zoolosy 

 condensation of such an amount of research and the 

 harvest of so many intellects as to deserve a word of 

 grateful recognition. The series is the field naturalist's 

 indispensable vade mecum, or, to speak more accurately, 

 work of reference ; for it would be inconvenient to 

 move about with ten volumes, each of 650 pages. The 

 different groups of animated nature have been com- 

 mitted to the care of specialists in each ; and the result 

 is a compendium wherein every branch of zoology is 

 brought well up to date. Man, being an arrogant and 

 self-confident mammal, may demur to the place 

 assigned to him in the scale of life by modern science. 

 If he turns to the volume on ' Mammalia,' he will find 

 himself at the top of the class still, which is satis- 

 factory so far ; but there is a sinister creature which 

 receives a proxime accessit, treading uncomfortably 

 close upon genuine human heels. 



