PREFATORY NOTICE. 
With a strong emotion of pleasure I write these prefatory 
remarks to accompany the following Catalogue of the Fossil 
Reptiles in the Woodwardian Museum. It is, I trust, a 
prelude to other works of a like kind; but it is in itself one 
of the scientific results of a labour continued through several 
years by my friend and assistant, H. G. Seeley, Esq. of St 
John’s College. Of the value of his work, the readers of the 
Catalogue—those especially who read it in our Geological 
Museum w r ith the arranged specimens before them—will be 
the best judges; and that it will be of great use to the aca¬ 
demic student I cannot for a moment doubt. He may see 
the specimens one by one, and side by side with the printed 
lists; and be enabled in that way to comprehend the evi¬ 
dence on which the several arrangements are founded: and, 
thereby, he may be led to grasp the anatomical reasoning of a 
more detailed Catalogue, which will I trust soon follow. The 
great scientific labour bestowed upon this Catalogue has not 
been at the cost of the University. I wish the cost to be 
regarded as a contribution of duty from myself, made in the 
fifty-second year of my public service as a Professor of the 
University, when from infirmity of sight and feebleness of 
health I was utterly incapable of undertaking such a task 
as my friend and assistant has now very nearly accomplished 
in my behalf. 
This thought, among others of a like kind, has enabled 
me, through three or four past years, to retain with a clear 
conscience the Geological Chair of the University, though 
