INTRODUCTION. 



Author Catalogue of the Books, Maps, MSS. and Drawings in the Natural History 

 -I- Departments of the British Museum has been prepared on lines corresponding to 

 those adopted in most of the large public libraries, while opportunity has been taken to 

 make it available for the purposes of the now indispensable Card Catalogue by repeating 

 the heading to each entry. 



The term " Book " has been held, so far as this Catalogue is concerned, to include 

 " any separate work, separately issued " ; but of the large number of separata in use in 

 the Museum, only those have been included which have been reprinted from publications 

 not represented in the Collection, or which, consisting of more than twenty pages, do 

 not bear the original pagination. In the case of a few important monographs, however, 

 this last rule has been relaxed. The title of the work from which each extract has 

 been taken is appended in abbreviated form in a note to the entry. 



Four subject headings, viz. "Atlases," "Dictionaries," " Encyclopaedias " and "Gazetteers," 

 have been included on the ground of their great importance, especially to the members 

 of the Museum staff, for whose use this "Catalogue is primarily intended. 



For the rest, the entries are ranged under the names of the authors of the various 

 works. Should no author's name, real or assumed, be given anywhere in the work, 

 the book is then catalogued under the principal word or words of the title, preference 

 being given to such as most clearly define the contents. 



Societies and Corporate Bodies are considered to be authors of their publications, 

 and are entered: (a) English, Colonial and American Societies, with such others as are 

 not local, directly under their proper name ; (6) all others under the name of the place 

 in which their headquarters are situate. 



Official accounts of Surveys and Explorations undertaken by any Government are 

 placed under the name of the country issuing them. 



Magazines and Journals of a similar character are entered under the first words of 

 the title, omitting articles. 



Maps are entered in the first instance under the name of the country charted. 



Cross-references are freely given in all cases where they will facilitate research ; but, 

 with the view of avoiding undue extension, no cross-references have been given from 

 the names of editors of the publications of Societies, when acting in an official capacity ; 

 nor from the names of editors, translators or the writers of formal prefaces who have 

 not contributed original matter to the works in connection with which their names 

 appear ; while in the case of those Societies' publications in which each memoir has a 

 separate pagination, cross-references are only given under the authors of such papers as 

 relate to Natural History. 



The arrangement of the entries under each heading is primarily chronological, but 

 any collected editions of an author's complete works, or of some of them, are always 



