FOREWORD. 



MR OLDFIELD THOMAS, F.R.S., of the British 

 Museum of Natural History, the well-known authority 

 on the mammals of the world, has kindly written the 

 following appreciation of the forthcoming work : — . 



"In my official capacity at the British Museum I have 

 constantly been asked for the name of a trustworthy book 

 on the subject of British Mammals, and I have had to put 

 off the enquirers with the promise of the present work, to the 

 appearance of which every mammalogist, technical or amateur, 

 has long been looking forward. 



" To produce such a work is a difficult, though highly 

 interesting task, which can only be efficiently completed in 

 a large Museum. For this no one could be better suited 

 than the author of the present work, who has for the last 

 fifteen years worked constantly at the National Museum, not 

 only on the British, but on all the European and Asiatic 

 "mammaha, and has written on them a considerable number 

 of valuable scientific papers. He is therefore fully in 

 touch with the literature of the subject, acquainted with all 

 its recent advances, and in agreement with the principles 

 of modern science. He has also had experience in the 

 collecting and observing of mammals in the field — at home, 

 in continental Europe, on the Seal Islands of Bering's Sea, 

 in Morocco, Kamchatka, and on the veldt of South Africa." 



