PREFACE. 



It is an old remark that every book has many authors; 

 it is one that is exceedingly applicable to ' The Zoologist,' 

 and we congratulate our contributors on the volume they 

 have produced for 1897. 



Our pages in the record of observations may be said to 

 exhibit the essence of co-operation, for our contributors do not 

 only write about animals, but absolutely seem to live and work 

 with them. This is the aim and ideal of * The Zoologist.' We 

 do not propose to merely interpret, but really to reveal the 

 secrets and the polity of the animal life that is around us. 



The present volume contains much of great interest in 

 British Ornithology. We have recorded the undoubted occur- 

 rence of Hypolais polyglotta in Sussex ; articles have appeared 

 on the capture of Pallas' s Willow Warbler, Phylloscopus pro- 

 regulus, in Norfolk towards the end of last year, while from 

 Cambridgeshire was announced the acquisition of an Albatross, 

 Diomedea melanophrys, and a recent communication shows that 

 little doubt can be entertained that a specimen of the Medi- 

 terranean Herring Gull, Larus cachinnans, was shot in Norfolk 

 in 1886. Ornithology has again held the place in our Magazine 

 which it has so long done, and ' The Zoologist ' appears to be 

 still considered the recognised and suitable vehicle for avian 

 observations. 



The Order Pisces has received increased attention, and in 

 British Zoology the very fact of our sea-girt realm should give 



