The YOtfHC HATURALJST : 



A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



No. 103. OCTOBER 29nd, 1881. Vol. 2. 



PAST AND FUTURE. 



ANOTHER year has rolled away ; 

 another volume has reached its 

 last number, and the editors must again 

 bow before their readers, apologize for 

 past shortcomings, and make promise 

 of better things for the future. We 

 think that we may venture to say that 

 we have improved in one important 

 matter during the past few months. 

 The printer's errors are now so nearly 

 eliminated from our pages, that we- have 

 no longer to blush lest our readers 

 should think that we, who advocate the 

 use of Latin names and scientific words, 

 could not spell even the simplest English. 



We have completed the papers on 

 British Butterflies in this volume, and 

 we shall be glad indeed if any of the 

 unsettled questions relating to this group 

 can be solved during the coming season. 

 The double-broodedness of V. C. album 

 has been satisfactorily proved — thanks 

 to the able assistance of Mrs. Hutchin- 

 son — and the writer has had the pleasure 

 of rearing both broods this year from 

 larvae she has kindly supplied. It is 

 proposed in the next volume to com- 

 mence a series of papers on our British 

 Heterocera in a similar style to those 

 already completed on the Rhopalocera, 



but we do not intend to take these in 

 strict scientific order, but rather to 

 write on those whose lives we have 

 been enabled to investigate, and with 

 the kind assistance of our readers we 

 hope not to run short of material. 



Our papers on British birds, their 

 nests and eggs, as well as their separate 

 publication, has made but slow progress 

 during this volume, but we hope to 

 proceed with it now as rapidly as proper 

 care and full investigation will permit. 

 We are pleased to know that those who 

 are taking the Hand Book consider it 

 the best for the money that has yet been 

 offered for sale. The figures of varieties 

 of eggs have not been attempted before, 

 and we hope when we reach the smaller 

 birds, and are able also to figure the 

 nests, that the work will be found 

 exceedingly useful to egg collectors, 

 and those who desire to study bird life 

 in its earlier stages. Here, too, we rely 

 on our readers' help (which has already 

 been freely rendered) to supply us with 

 the nests we have not yet figured, and 

 especially with birds in the down. 



Many of our readers during the past 

 year have expressed a little dissatisfac- 

 tion with our plates. Those who have 

 them coloured have been better pleased 



