PREFACE. 
In consequence of the numerous and important additions which 
have been made to the knowledge of the Fossil Fauna and Flora of 
Great Britain since the publication of Woodward’s ‘Synoptical 
Table/ the Author has been induced to prepare a new Catalogue, 
intended to comprise all those Species which have been hitherto 
figured or described. 
The want of a compilation of this description has been for some 
time generally acknowledged, and the Author has therefore collated 
with considerable care all the most important publications on the 
subject : and although he cannot but be sensible that the present 
Work has many imperfections, he trusts that it will be found in 
some degree useful, as well to the geologist as to the naturalist, 
in directing their attention to the strict determination of species 
peculiar to each formation, and thus enabling them, by future ob- 
servations, to enlarge the knowledge of the geographical and geo- 
logical distribution of British Fossil Remains. 
On this subject it has been well observed by Professor Phillips, 
“ that the most important results to Geology, arising from the con- 
templation of organic remains, are founded on a minute scrutiny of 
their specific characters, and a careful register of their localities in 
the strata. It is not enough for the rigid accuracy of modern in- 
quiry to say, that a given rock contains corals, shells, and bones 
of fishes ; but we must know the particular species, and determine 
all the circumstances of their occurrence. The more exact and 
extended our researches on this subject become, the more clear will 
be our statements on the succession of created beings, the more 
certain our applications of zoological principles to determine the 
relative antiquity of rocks, and the more satisfactory our views of 
the formation of the strata.” (Geol. Yorksh. i. p. 85.) 
At the time when Woodward’s ‘ Synoptical Table ’ was prepared, 
the zoological evidences of the ancient strata were very obscure, 
and the terms Devonian and Silurian series were unknown in the 
science of geology. The recent publication of some highly import- 
ant memoirs has considerably lessened this hiatus in the Palaeozoic 
