XII 
INTRODUCTION. 
particular department of Natural History; I am enabled to pass over in but 
few words, the less agreeable part of my duty with regard to the publication 
now before me. But it would be unjust were I to bestow unqualified praise, 
where the examination of any single page would show that favour, and not 
justice, must have dictated so partial an appreciation of its merits. 
The faults which generally appertain to Mr. Gray s work, may be in part 
attributed to haste, and to the author’s extreme anxiety not to omit a single 
known species from his catalogue, whether before described or not. The con¬ 
tinual occurrence of incorrect typography, too, would perhaps scarcely deserve 
mention, were it not, in many instances, entirely subversive of the right un¬ 
derstanding of the author’s meaning. But the frequent adoption of the dis¬ 
coveries of other naturalists, not only without acknowledgement, but with the 
name of Gray appended as the sign of appropriation, must not be passed over 
in silence, though I gladly leave so unpleasant a duty with this mere allusion. 
Allied to this fault is the application of the altered generic name of a former 
author, to a portion of the original genus, now first considered as distinct, 
and appropriated by this author. An instance of this occurs in the name 
Emyda, given by Mr. Gray to a part of the genus Trionyx of Geoffroy. Now 
the whole genus was originally named Amycla by Schweigger, and improperly 
put aside by Geoffroy to give place to his own name of Trionyx . The mere 
alteration of a single letter is too slight a deviation to allow us to consider it 
as an accidental coincidence, though it may be sufficient, in Mr. Gray’s view, 
to give him the right of assuming the name Emyda as his own. The Synopsis 
however is, notwithstanding all these defects, by far the most correct and 
extensive that has yet appeared; but though its excellencies may well disarm 
us of asperity in our animadversions on its faults, they make us the more 
feelingly regret the blemishes with which it is so sullied. 
