PfiEFACE. 
Of the many varied and rich collections embraced within the 
Museum there is probably none which contains so large an assem- 
blage of “ types ” as that of the Possil Fishes. Many of the speci- 
mens have been preserved for more than a hundred years, indeed 
ever since the foundation of the Museum ; but it was during the 
Keepership of the late Mr. Charles Konig (1813-1851) that the 
fossU fish collection first assnmed a separate and marked import- 
ance. It was most fortunate that the task commenced bj' Mr. Konig 
should have been steadily followed .up by Mr. William Davies 
(1843-1887), by whom it was relegated to Mr. Arthur Smith 
Woodward, who entered the Museum in 1882 ; so that the history 
of every specimen has, as a rule, been carefuUy preserved and safely 
handed down to the present time. 
The additions made by separate purchases, and by donations, 
extending over so many years, have greatly augmented the series, 
but the acquisition of the Collections of Mantell, Dixon, Bowerbank, 
Hiiberlein, van Breda, Capron, Lewis, and, most of all those of 
Egerton and Enniskillen, has raised the present standard of this 
magnificent Gallery of Fossil Fishes higher than that in any 
other Museum in the world. 
No class of organisms are better represented in our rocks than 
are fishes, although, particularly in the present subclass, we have 
reason to regret their too frequent fragmentary condition, yet 
recent researches have shed such a flood of light upon these ancient 
a 2 
