PREFACE. 
I HAVE again the pleasure of acknowledging a grant of dBlOO 
from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 
and a contribution of dBlOO from the Government Grant Fund of 
the Royal Society (the fourth contribution from that source) ; a 
fifth contribution, of £60, 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. 
Tho engagements of Dr. Liitken, Recorder of the oxtonsivo and 
difficult groups VermeSy Ecliinodermata, Coalenterata, Bpongozoa, and 
Protozoa^ will no longer permit him to undertake so much work as 
heretofore ; most efficient assistants have, however, been found in 
Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell and Mr. Stuart 0. Ridley, who have respec- 
tively undertaken the first and the last two of those groups, and 
who, as Assistants in the Natural History Department of the 
British Museum, are eminently qualified for the task. It is a 
matter of congratulation that the staff of Recorders now includes 
no less than four officers of the National Museum. 
I regret that the publication of the present volume as a whole has 
been somewhat delayed, in some degree by my own want of leisure ; 
but it is to be hoped that the issue of the various separate parts, as 
soon as completed, to the members and subscribers who have 
availed themselves of tho resolution of tho Council of tho Associa- 
tion to that effect, may have materially diminished tho consequent 
inconvenience, 
EDWARD CALDWELL RYE. 
Royal Geographical Society, 
1, Savile Row, Burlington Gardens, London, 
July, 1879. 
