PREFACE. 



To write a preface after a volume is considered the right thing. 

 There is no other course open. But a preface may have a multitude 

 of phases, — the apologetic, the vainglorious, the mock modest, the 

 trifling, the profound, the philosophical, the argumentative, the depre- 

 catory, the retrospective, the historical, and so forth : still, to the best 

 of my knowledge, I have never read a prospective preface, a preface 

 that ignores the past and looks only to the future. Such a preface is 

 simply impossible ; the future itself is built upon the past, and so must 

 be a preface : nevertheless I incline to make an experiment, — to pro- 

 ject the shadows of the past into the future. 



How numerous are the zoological problems still unsolved ! How 

 well worthy are they of solution ! How many active minds desire 

 their solution ! How many of us would have declared the existence 

 of a feathered reptile impossible ! And granting that the history of 

 a feathered reptile has been printed on the lithographic stone of Solen- 

 hofen, a question adhuc subjitdice, where in our system shall we place 

 such a monster ? What a subject for the systematist. How can we 

 cut this gordian knot. Shall we deny the existence of such a creature ? 

 Shall we assert that all the pterodactyles were birds ? Shall we say 

 " let bygones be bygones," and maintain that extinct animals form no 

 part of our systems ; just as those who fear lest some future Darwin 

 should deduce their descent from a gorilla, assert that man is not an 

 animal, that he forms no part of the animal kingdom ? Shall we hold 

 with the author of Omphalos that fossil bones were created with and 

 of the rocks ? What a fertile subject for conjecture is here ! what a 

 field for enquiry ! 



In Ornithology how many problems yet await solution ! What was 

 the dodo ? " A dove," replies the comparative anatomist, and with 

 great subtlety has he argued his point, with a profound knowledge has 



