Periodical Works on Natural History. 303 
my task; for, as the authors and editors alluded to are, for 
the most part, naturalists of one class or another, I am sorry, 
as a brother-naturalist, to be compelled to speak or think 
unfavourably of any of the fraternity, of whom I would fain 
wish to be able to entertain the same opinion as good old 
Izaak Walton did of his brethren of the angle, that they are 
all «very honest men.” Thus far our way has proved tole- 
rably smooth, and we have gone on pretty comfortably, with- 
out much jostling and jolting; now the face of the country 
begins to assume a different appearance, and the journey 
threatens to be more rough and disagreeable. I shall not be 
deterred, however, from pursuing my course, in spite of all 
difficulties and obstructions. The little, mean, paltry tricks, 
of which some otherwise respectable editors are guilty, must 
be exposed to view, and held up to merited reprobation. At 
the commencement of a periodical work, the author usually 
puts forth a prospectus, in which he states, among other par- 
ticulars, his plan and object, the nature and probable extent 
of the work, the number and style of the plates, whether 
coloured or plain, the usual quantity of letterpress, the stated 
intervals at which the numbers are to appear, and the price 
of the work per number. Now, as it is on the faith of such 
guarantee that the public have to depend, and by which they 
are in great measure guided in making up their minds whether 
to take the work or not, the author is bound, in common 
honesty, strictly to sahere to the engagements which he has 
thus voluntarily undertaken. Ifhe fails to fulfil the promises 
he has held out, his prospectus serves only as a decoy-duck 
to entrap merece: and entice the unwary to their loss. I 
pass over the great irregularity which occasionally takes place 
in the appointed periods of publication; because this, [ am 
aware, may be owing to circumstances over which the author 
has little or no control: the printer may be dilatory and 
unpunctual ; or the engraver or colourer crane with 
a more than ordinary 1 press of urgent business; or twenty 
accidents may occur. But when the j irregularity is carried to 
the extent we sometimes see it, the author himself is har dly 
to be acquitted of all participation in the blame. ‘The reduc- 
tion of the number of plates in a fasciculus is a more grievous 
charge. An author engages to give three, four, or six plates 
(as the case may be), in each number, and at a certain price : 
after a time, stimulated, perhaps, by the lucre of gain, he 
thinks fit to make an alteration; and, to put the best face on 
things, this he does, either by adding one or more plates, and, 
at the same time, raising the price of each fasciculus out of due 
proportion ; or else by reducing the number of plates, and in- 
xX 4 
