PREFACE. 
I HAVE again the pleasure of acknowledging a grant of £100 
from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 
and a contribution of £100 from the Government Grant Fund of 
the Royal Society (the fifth contribution from that source) ; a 
sixth contribution, of £50, has also been voted by the Council of the 
Zoological Society of London, in aid of this undertaking. 
I thank my fellow Recorders very sincerely for their continued 
co-operation. 
The engagements of the Recorder of Arachnida and Myriopoda 
have prevented him from supplying his contributions at the usual 
period ; and in the idea of not further delaying the publication 
of the present volume, the first of those groups has been omitted, 
and will be incorporated in the next issue. As to the Myriopoda^ 
I have put together such notes as have occurred to me. Increasing 
engagements have also rendered it impossible for me to continue to 
record so many groups of the Insecta as heretofore ; and Mr. W. F. 
Kirby of the British Museum has undertaken all of them but the 
Goleoptera^ which, with the General Subject of Insecta^ will in future 
also be recorded by him. 
"^'At the last Annual General Meeting of the Zoological Record 
Association, a Special Committee was appointed for the purpose 
of endeavouring to expedite the publication of the annual volume ; 
and arrangements have been made, both as regards Contributors 
and Printers, which it is hoped will have the eventual effect of 
bringing out the Record of one year’s work during the succeeding 
year. It is obvious that this cannot be effected at the first attempt, 
and the increasing bulk of the work must be considered with refer- 
ence to the dif&culty of earlier publication (the present volume, in 
spite of the omission of Wiq Arachnida^ being upwards of sixty pages 
longer than its predecessor). It is, however, confidently expected 
that the Record of 1879 will be published in the beginning of next 
year. 
EDWARD CALDWELL RYE. 
Royal Geographical Society, 
1, Savile Row, Burlington Gardens, London, 
Jidy^ 1880. 
