PREFATORY NOTE 
TO EIGHTH EDITION, 
Tue present edition is printed from the same plates as 
the fifth edition, published in 1890. The decade which 
closes the century has seen greater activity in the study of 
species of animals and their relation to their environment 
than has been known in any other corresponding period 
in the world’s history. Such study has given much greater 
precision to our knowledge of the characters and the dis- 
tribution of species, with the minor results of the recogni- 
tion of synonyms, and the correction of nomenclature by 
its establishment on the solid basis of priority. 
Most of the recent changes in the scientific names of 
animals are due to the use of the earliest name given to 
the species, instead of some later one applied through 
error of one sort or another. 
To bring the present work up to date, it is necessary to 
change these antedated names, but there is no correspond- 
ing change, in most cases, in the definitions of the genera 
and species themselves. It has therefore seemed unneces- 
sary to ask the publishers to incur the great expense of 
resetting the type for a new edition. I have indicated in 
an appendix the principal additions and alterations which 
seem necessary in the group of Fishes. By the applica- 
tion of these corrections the nomenclature of this group 
will be made to correspond to that of Jordan & Ever- 
mann’s Fishes of North and Middle America (4 parts: 
part 1, published 1897; parts 2 and 3, 1898; part 4 in 
1899), to which elaborately illustrated work students are 
referred for further details. 
