PKEFACE. 



Sixteen years have elapsed since anything hke a Preface has 

 appeared ia an annual volume of the ' Zoologist ' : sixteen years ! 

 it is a considerable portion of a life ! During that period the parent 

 work, that from which the ' Zoologist ' descended, has been revived, 

 and has met with unparalleled success. 



'The Entomologist' was projected and commenced in October, 

 1840, the first number being puUished on the 1st of November of 

 that year. The Fu-st Volume, consisting of twenty-six sixpenny 

 numbers, was completed on the 1st of December, 1842, with the 

 following announcement : — 



'"The Entomologist,' under its present title, will now cease; 

 but the spu-it of the work, more particularly as regards those brief 

 but highly interesting communications which my correspondents 

 have from tune to time contributed to the chapter intituled Varieties, 

 will be continued in the pages of the ' Zoologist.' " 



This combination existed for twenty years, during which the 

 ' Zoologist ' gradually increased in bulk until it could no longer suffice 

 for the requirements of all branches of Zoology, and a periodical 

 exclusively entomological became a manifest necessity. 



As a matter of course, the abstraction of the entomological matter 

 from the pages of the ' Zoologist' impoverished that journal to a con- 

 siderable extent ; it was a competing hne imder the same dh-ection ; 

 apparently a suicidal measure; an absiu-dity: the result, however, 

 has not been altogether unsatisfactory. Although the contributors 

 and subscribers to the ' Zoologist' have slightly decreased, those to the 

 'Entomologist,' during the eight years of its renewed lease of life, 

 have increased fom-fold and are stUl mcreasing ; and thus a multitude 

 of young and energetic naturalists have been actually called into 

 existence. 



It cannot and need not be concealed that the circulation of the 

 ' Zoologist ' has also been diminished by its opposition to the seductive 

 and popular hypothesis of Evolution so ably and unceasingly advocated 

 by Mr. Darwin and his followers. Nothing, I admit, is gained by this 



