(The floung $latiir;ilist : 



A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



No. 14. 



JANUAEY 31st, 1880. 



Vol. 1. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



BfROM time to time we have made 

 various announcements to our 

 lbscriber* respecting our illustra- 

 ous. Our original promise was 

 lustrations in the text, and an 

 casional lithographed plate which 

 ould be hand colored for our annual 

 "iibseribers. This has been carried 

 jit so far. Our intention, as some of 

 ir friends know, was to give four of 

 ese extra special plates in the year, 

 h to be illustrative of some subject 

 tat required more careful pourtraying 

 an could be done in woodcuts printed 

 m in the ordinary way. The first 

 ate, which has given great satisfac- 

 n was illustrative of " Orders of 

 lsects." The next will be— unless 

 mietbing more urgent turns up in the 

 eantime — illustrative of the various 

 odes of fructification among ferns, 

 tid will be given when we commence 

 ir papers on the British Ferns. 



In No. 12 we announced our 

 tention of commencing a History of 

 ritish Butterflies, which was to be 

 ustrated by woodcuts of the various 

 ecies, their larva?, pupae, and more 



striking varieties. When we came to 

 consider what would be needed to 

 cany out our ideas of the illustrations 

 we wished to give, we saw that we 

 would make such large inroads on our 

 very limited space for letterpress, that 

 we must either decide to give fewer 

 illustrations, or find some other way 

 of doing it. Besides this some of our 

 correspondents, in the kindest way, 

 hinted that some of our woodcuts were 

 not quite so good as they might be, 

 and suggested that they should be 

 improved a little before we began our 

 British Butterflies. But sometimes it 

 is easier to find a fault than to suggest 

 a remedy, and though our friends were 

 exceedingly careful not to hurt our 

 feelings, " a wink is as good as a nod,' 

 and they were only saying what we 

 had always known. Desiring then 

 that our " British Butterflies" should 

 really do us credit, w T e have decided to 

 abandon the proposed woodcuts in the 

 text, and to substitute for them a 

 monthly lithographed plate, each of 

 which will contain figures of two or 

 more species, their larva?, pupa?, and 

 of any varieties that we think will give 

 a better understanding of the specie?. 



