PREFACE. 



This Journal has now completed tte tentli year of its publication, since 

 it was launclied on the extended basis wbicb was inaugurated after its 

 first year, when it formed a volume of 402 pages only. 



Tbrougbout this period I have had no reason to complain of any want 

 of appreciation, but on the contrary have to acknowledge a veritable 

 load of congratulations of a very demonstrative character, not only from 

 microscopists but from biologists generally who have recognized the value 

 of a publication — the only one in the English language — which enables 

 its readers to make themselves acquainted without delay with the 

 contents of the enormously scattered literature of Biology and Microscopy 

 throughout the world. It is the fact of this consensus of opinion that 

 leads me to add this Preface to the present volume, as the approbation 

 that has been showered on the Journal has not fully reached those who 

 are most worthy of it. 



In the case of a battle, it is perhaps necessary that it should pass as 

 the victory of the particular general in command, however much it may 

 have been due to the skilful arrangements of the commanders of divisions 

 or to the general valour of the rank and file, but we are not trammelled 

 by any such rules in the case of this Journal, and it is proper therefore 

 to call attention to the extent to which its success is due to my 

 Co-editors. 



In the departments of Botany and Zoology, Mr. A. W, Bennett 

 and Prof. F. Jefirey Bell have now for ten years analysed the various 

 papers which have been recorded in the Summary of Current Eesearches. 

 No one who has not actually undertaken it can have any idea of the 

 extent of the labour which this involves. My own preKminary work in 

 advance of the actual analyses has required a certain amount of reso- 

 lution to face week after week, but this labour has been very small 

 in comparison with that undertaken by Mr. Bennett and Prof. Bell, who 

 have had to read through the whole of the papers and then to produce 

 those analyses which have appeared in number after number. Moreover, 

 the length of the notes is practically in inverse proportion to the 

 dijQ&culty of writing them. It is easy to produce an extended abstract ; 



