iV PREFACE. 
which, as found in South Africa, more than one contribution has 
appeared. 
When we turn to the many classes of animals still practically 
ignored in our pages, we are reminded of the yet unexplored 
areas in animal bionomics which it is the self-constituted pro- 
vince of ‘The Zoologist’ to explore. This Journal has always, 
and will always, seek to understand the economy of animal life, 
and endeavour to reveal the polity and life-secrets of our fellow- 
creatures—using that term in its wider and zoological sense. 
We may on this point quote the words of Emerson :—‘‘ I hold an 
actual knowledge very cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, see the 
lizard on the fence, the fungus under foot, the lichen on the log. 
What do I know sympathetically, morally, of either of these 
worlds of life?” 
The Editor, in his annual acknowledgment to his contribu- 
tors, trusts to their renewed acquaintance during the succeeding 
year—the jin de siecle—with all best wishes to them, belief in 
the future of the science we study, and hope in a renewed value 
and usefulness of our next volume. 
