LOCAL LISTS OP MAMMALS. 175 



cation, size, and date, followed in many cases by a few brief 

 remarks on the work catalogued. The date of publication has, 

 contrary to custom, been placed after the size, for convenience of 

 reference. In the case of magazine articles, or of lists which 

 form portions only of larger works, the title of the magazine or 

 work of which they form part, has been given in italics, for the 

 sake of distinction. 



With scarcely an exception, I have excluded all volumes or 

 articles which do not aim at giving a tolerably complete list of the 

 species inhabiting the districts of which they treat. Mere notes 

 or observations on a few species only are, therefore, entirely 

 omitted, even although they may be purely local. For instance, 

 the Kev. H. A. Macpherson's interesting pamphlet on ' The 

 Visitation of Pallas's Sand Grouse to Scotland in 1888 ' (London, 

 8vo, 1889) and many similar essays are excluded. To have 

 included notices or articles on the distribution of single species 

 over certain areas, or their occurrence in certain spots, would 

 have enormously swelled (and totally changed the constitution of) 

 my catalogues. This would, in fact, have made them nothing 

 less than a complete index to the literature of the British vertebrate 

 animals — a work for which my leisure is altogether inadequate. 



In every case, the titles of the volumes or articles entered in 

 my bibliography have been taken by me direct from the works 

 themselves, and have not been obtained second-hand, except in 

 those few instances in which I clearly state that I myself have 

 " not seen " the works in question. 



I have been taken to task by more than one good naturalist 

 for having arranged the items in my catalogues according to 

 political, rather than natural, divisions. I maintain, however, 

 that the course I have adopted is the right one. I regard 

 these catalogues merely as a means towards an end — 

 namely, the ultimate mapping-out of the exact distribution 

 of each British species. This should, of course, be done with 

 regard to the natural divisions ; but so much of the work 

 which goes to make such a mapping-out possible, has been done 

 with regard only to political boundaries (such as those of counties) 

 that there was little or no alternative but to compile the present 

 catalogues in the form I have adopted. 



Surprise will, I think, be felt at the extraordinarily-large 

 number of " Local Lists" which it has been found possible to in- 



