NEW SERIES 
OF 
THE ANNALS AND MAGAZINE 
OF 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
On commencing a NEW SERIES of THE ANNALS and 
MAGAZINE or NATURAL HISTORY, the Editors trust that 
they may refer, with some degree of confidence, to the contents 
of the Twenty Volumes which have been published under their 
superintendence, as the result of their endeavours to succeed in 
establishing a comprehensive and permanent Journal of the de- 
partments of knowledge to which the work is devoted. 
Viewing Natural History, so far as the study of Organized 
beings is concerned, as a science each branch of which is essen- 
tially connected with the others by principles and phsenomena 
common to all, it has been the object of the Editors to include 
whatever tended to the advancement of the study both of the 
Animal and Vegetable Kingdom. 
The important duty of making known in this country the 
labours and discoveries of Foreign Naturalists, the Editors trust 
has hitherto been to a considerable extent fulfilled, in the great 
number of Translations and Abstracts from the principal Journals 
and Memoirs of other countries, and in Notices of Foreign Works 
in all branches of Natural History, which have been given with 
a view to enable the lovers of the science to keep pace with its 
progress in every stage of advancement. 
With regard to the Naturalists of our own country, it has 
