EDITOEIAL NOTES. 



THE Report on the RADIOLARIA by Professor Ernst Haeckel of Jena occupies 

 the whole of the present Volume, the text being bound up in Two Separate 

 Parts and the Plates in a Third Part. The Report forms Part XL. of the 

 Zoological Series of Reports on the Scientific Results of the Expedition, and 

 is the largest single Report of the series which has up to this time been 

 published. 



The Manuscript of the Systematic Part was written by Professor Haeckel 

 in the English language, and was received by me in instalments on the 12th 

 August 1884, 13th July and 4th December 1885, and 3rd June 1886. The 

 Introduction was written in German and was translated into the English 

 language by Mr. W. E. Hoyle of the Challenger Editorial Staff; the German 

 text being received in instalments between the 15th July 1886, and the 25th 

 January 1887. 



The Challenger Naturalists found the representatives of this group of 

 animals to be universally distributed throughout ocean waters, and their dead 

 remains to be nearly equally widely distributed over the floor of the ocean, 

 the relative abundance and the species differing, however, with change of 

 locality, and their abundance or variety being intimately connected with 

 some of the most interesting and intricate problems of general oceanography. 



It was a fortunate circumstance that so distinguished a Naturalist, with 

 such an intimate knowledge of the RADIOLARIA, should have been willing to 

 undertake the laborious examination and description of the extensive collec- 



