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PREFACE. 
“ Altum nec spiro, nec spero." 
Since the publication of Ellis’s Essay on Corallines in the 
year 1755, no separate work has appeared in illustration of our 
native Zoophytes. In the meantime, and more especially within 
these few last years, a much more accurate knowledge of their 
structure has been attained, and many species have been added 
to the list ; and it has been my object to give here an account 
of these discoveries, to connect them with what had been previous- 
ly made known, and to combine the whole under a system 
more in harmony with the anatomy of the objects than has 
hitherto been done. If I have succeeded in bringing within a 
convenient volume, the materials that at present lie scattered 
through many expensive and miscellaneous ones, some of them 
too of difficult acquisition, I may, perhaps, claim the merit of 
having conferred no inconsiderable benefit on the student, even 
should his future studies convince him that I have not forwarded 
or enriched this particular branch of natural history by any no- 
velties. Originality indeed has been less my aim than fulness 
and accuracy of compilation ; but I have endeavoured to quali- 
fy myself for this apparently humble task by many personal re- 
searches and observations on the species that are found in my own 
neighbourhood, under the conviction that a compiler will rarely 
succeed in giving a correct idea or representation of the objects 
