» INTRODUCTORY EXPLANATIONS. 



with a book of little or no interest in their eyes. On the 

 other side, those who really wished to possess copies, were 

 sometimes equally shy in asking for them. And even in 

 cases where the parties better understood each other, it was 

 often found troublesome or expensive to get the copies to 

 their intended destinations ; particularly where that desti- 

 nation was in a foreign countiy. Thus, pubUcation has ap- 

 peared to be the more convenient coiuse, on the whole. 

 But in publishing the first volume, the author wishes it to 

 be distinctly understood, that he thereby makes no greater 

 pledge for ultimate completion, than is imphed by a strong 

 desii'e and present intention to complete, at least, that por- 

 tion which will relate to the distribution of plants within 

 the limits of Britain. It is obvious that the work cannot be 

 deemed complete, in any sense, until the species-distribu- 

 tion of all the phsenogamic orders is finished. About one- 

 third of the whole will be included in the present volume. 

 Two other volumes will complete the distribution of spe- 

 cies ; and when it has thus reached the Gramina or Pteri- 

 dioides (which soever may be made the final order), the 

 character of incompleteness will no longer attach to the 

 publication. A fourth volume is intended to include gene- 

 ral views and summaries, founded on the details and facts 

 of the three earlier volumes. But while the author hopes 

 to render his final volume a contribution of some value to 

 science, the absence of that volume will not materially de- 

 tract from any usefulness of the three earlier volumes, 

 taken by themselves. 



Although it is now designed that the more general views 

 and summaries shall follow those notices about the distri- 

 bution of species, severally, which will occupy much of the 

 three earlier volumes of the present work, it still appears 

 necessary here to anticipate general results in some slight 



