PREFACE. 
This, the thirty- second volume of the Zoological Record, is more 
voluminous than its predecessors, in consequence of including the 
literature of two years in the case of four of the eighteen 
departments. 
We have had the assistance of several new Recorders : Messrs. 
R. T. Gunther and F. Chapman, Professor von Lendenfeld, and 
Dr. W. Fraser Hume having kindly undertaken the work of re- 
cording in certain divisions of the so-called lower animals, the 
study of which is attracting more and more the attention of 
Naturalists. Twenty-five years ago, in 1870, the classes subse- 
quent to Insecta occupied altogether only 44 pages of the volume, 
but in the present one 175 pages are devoted to the same groups. 
Although, with increasing knowledge, there must come changes 
in classification, we have endeavoured to keep the general arrange- 
ment of the Record as uniform as possible ; such minor changes 
as are from time to time introduced being made with the view of 
facilitating research, and of constituting the Record a complete guide 
in all the numerous branches of zoological study. There are some 
Naturalists who think that our “ Vermes ” should now be divided 
into several separate Records. Miss Buchanan, however, arranges 
the Record in question in such a way that the specialist can have 
no difficulty in tracing what refers to his particular department ; 
