PREFACE. 



matter was put in type for his inspection and correction, but the matter 

 was published so rapidly that it frequently went to press before the 

 return by mail, of his proof. The greater part of the work, therefore, did 

 not have the benefit of his revision. 



As an illustration, the genus Maorooheilus has been considered 

 masculine by all the authors, and consequently the specific names have 

 been made masculine. As Prof. Olaypole did not read the proof, the 

 specific names are published here in the masculine, as the authors made 

 them; but on his authority the species under the genera Temnooheilus, 

 Solenooheilus, etc., have been changed from the masculine to the neuter 

 gender. It may be a question, however, whether usage has not made 

 such genera masculine. No such doubt can arise in the case of the words 

 ending in nema as, Oyclonema, Zoxonema, Dictyonema, etc., which have 

 been treated almost or quite uniformly by the authors as feminine ; for 

 nema is neuter, in both the Latin and the Greek languages, and there is 

 no reason whatever, for using it as feminine. Where specific names have 

 been formed in more genders than one under a single genus, there seems 

 to be no responsibility in correcting the errors and making the specific 

 names correspond in gender with the genus, and this has been done in 

 several hundred instances in this work. Perfection, however, has not 

 been reached in this publication, and for the purpose of rendering 

 greater assistance in that regard, the "Index of Genera" has been made 

 to indicate the gender of each genus, so that any one with a little 

 knowledge of Latin can make the species conform in gender with the 

 genus. The reader will know that generic names are usually coined 

 from Greek words, and specific names from Latin words or proper names 

 with Latin terminations. 



In Latinizing specific proper names, no uniformity has ever existed, 

 nor can the author claim to have accomplished it in this work. Some 

 authors have used the terminations ianus, iana and ianum, while others 

 have used anus, ana and anum. The first impression was that the 

 former endings were proper, and consequently they were used in part 

 of this work; but the best authors use only the latter, and upon 

 reflection we were of the opinion that the latter endings are the 

 proper ones, and they were thereafter used in this work exclusively. 

 The reader is directed, therefore, to correct the proper names ending in 

 ianus, iana a.ni ianum, which occur, in some instances, from th^ Polypi 

 to the Brachiopoda, by striking out the letter i and thus perfect this class 

 of words. 



Again, no uniformity exists in specific proper names put in the geni- 

 tive case by adding the Latin ending i, where the proper names end in 

 e, y, etc. There seems to be no difficulty where the proper name ends in 

 a consonant, in accomplishing the desired purpose by adding a single *, 

 and generally where words of more than one syllable end in e, the same 

 purpose may be accomplished by changing the e to i; but there are 

 words where positive difficulty exists, for instance ; Case, Casey, White, 

 Whity, Moor, Moore, Hoy, etc. Some would change the e into i in Moore 



