PREFACE. 



Seven years have passed away since the ' Zoologist ' commenced 

 its career : a Seventh Volume is this day complete. It may truly be 

 said that each volume has exceeded its predecessor in interest and in 

 value. It remains to be seen whether this progressive improvement 

 can continue : my own opinion favours the idea that it can and will. 

 Nature is a treasury so inexhaustible, that the greater the number 

 and the greater the zeal of those who draw on her stores, the 

 greater will be the yield of new and valuable facts : and most true 

 it is that the number of observers, and consequently of observations, 

 increases day by day, month by month, year by year. The ques- 

 tion, cui bono ? — the inquiry whether an increase of pounds, shillings 

 and pence, of food and raiment, result from our labours, — is not now 

 brought so prominently forward as it used to be : it is considered not 

 altogether unprofitable that the mind as well as the body should be 

 clothed and fed, and there are many, even among the wisest, who 

 advocate a search for mental food and clothing amid the works of the 

 great Creator. The number of such advocates must increase : the 

 education which is now given tends to a more just appreciation of 

 corporeal and mental advantages, and even regards the possession of 

 pecuniary wealth rather as a means of obtaining mental wealth than 

 as the ultimate goal of the race we are running. The study of Nature 

 is amongst the most healthy and invigorating of mental occupations ; 

 the love of the study is instinctive ; the mind, even in childhood, 

 revels in it; and it is not until the authority exercised over us by 

 others, or avarice and ambition germinating in ourselves, have sug- 

 gested more w T orldly-profitable occupations, that we abandon the 



