PREFACE. 



To WRITE a preface after a volume is considered the right thing. 

 There is no other course open. But a preface may have a multitude 

 of phases, — the apologetic, the vainglorious, the mock modest, the 

 trifling, the profound, the philosophical, the argumentative, the depre- 

 catory, the retrospective, the historical, and so forth : still, to the best 

 of my knowledge, I have never read a prospective preface, a preface 

 that ignores the past and looks only to the future. Such a preface is 

 simply impossible ; the future itself is built upon the past, and so must 

 be a preface : nevertheless I incline to make an experiment, — to pro- 

 ject the shadows of the past into the future. 



How numerous are the zoological problems still unsolved ! How 

 well worthy are they of solution ! How many active minds desire 

 their solution ! How many of us would have declared the existence 

 of a feathered reptile impossible ! And granting that the history of 

 a feathered reptile has been printed on the lithographic stone of Solen- 

 hofen, a question adhuc subjudice, where in our system shall we place 

 such a monster ? What a subject for the systeraatist. How can we 

 cut this gordian knot. Shall we deny the existence of such a creature ? 

 Shall we assert that all the pterodaclyles were birds } Shall we say 

 " let bygones be bygones," and maintain that extinct animals form no 

 part of our systems ; just as those who fear lest some future Darwin 

 should deduce their descent from a gorilla, assert that man is not an 

 animal, that he forms no part of the animal kingdom? Shall we hold 

 with the author of Omphalos that fossil bones were created with and 

 of the rocks ? What a fertile subject for conjecture is here ! what a 

 field for enquiry ! 



In Ornithology how many problems yet await solution ! What was 

 the dodo ? " A dove," replies the comparative anatomist, and with 

 great subtlety has he argued his point, with a profound knowledge has 



