PREFACE 
vn 
Jenyns ; and of the Reptiles, by Mr. Bell. I have appended 
to the descriptions of each species an account of its habits and 
range. These works, which I owe to the high talents and 
disinterested zeal of the above distinguished authors, could not 
have been undertaken had it not been for the liberality of the 
Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury, who, through 
the representation of the Right Honourable the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, have been pleased to grant a sum of one 
thousand pounds towards defraying part of the expenses of 
publication. 
I have myself published separate volumes on the Structure 
and Distribution of Coral Reefs; on the Volcanic Islands 
visited during the Voyage of the Beagle ; and on the Geology of 
South America. The sixth volume of the Geological Trans¬ 
actions contains two papers of mine on the Erratic Boulders 
and Volcanic Phenomena of South America. Messrs. Water- 
house, Walker, Newman, and White, have published several 
able papers on the Insects which were collected, and I trust 
that many others will hereafter follow. The plants from the 
southern parts of America will be given by Dr. J. Hooker, in 
his great work on the Botany of the Southern Hemisphere. 
The Flora of the Galapagos Archipelago is the subject of a 
separate memoir by him, in the Linnean Transactions. The 
Reverend Professor Henslow has published a list of the plants 
collected by me at the Keeling Islands ; and the Reverend J. 
M. Berkeley has described my cryptogamic plants. 
I shall have the pleasure of acknowledging the great 
assistance which I haye received from several other naturalists 
in the course of this and my other works ; but I must be here 
allowed to return my most sincere thanks to the Reverend 
Professor Henslow, who, when I was an undergraduate at 
Cambridge, was one chief means of giving me a taste for 
Natural History,—who, during my absence, took charge of the 
collections I sent home, and by his correspondence directed my 
endeavours,—and who, since my return, has constantly rendered 
me every assistance which the kindest friend could offer. 
Down, Bromley, Kent, 
June 1845. 
