subject which, in some form or other, is coeval with thinking man, however crude and wild some early hypotheses may have been, but it is now the established corner-stone of the zoological edifice. There may be much pure guessing, considerable theoretical sack without much bread of fact; but to abstain from all theory is equivalent to discarding the method of Darwin, to ignoring the speculation of a Humboldt. The Editor therefore hopes to receive the thought-out conclusions of contributors on the facts acquired in, and by, their special studies and observations, which may be qualified in the words of Treviranus, who prefaced his speculative opinions in these words:—"The author will give opinion and theory a place in this work, but he is far from those who give their dreams and fancies a reality and permanence, believing that his own theories may perish, and hoping to direct the current of thought in Biology to adapt itself to Nature, and not make Nature adapt itself to the current of thought."
If, however, facts are made more philosophical by generalization, it is clear that all speculation must and should depend on facts, and it is expected that 'The Zoologist' will in the future, as it has done in the past, prove a storehouse of the same, a journal worthy of the observations that immortalized Gilbert White and canonized Richard Jefferies. Its pages are open to record all observations, the only conditions being that such records shall be original, and the species to which they apply accurately determined. With all our knowledge of Natural History it is almost phenomenal how little is still known of the life-histories of many living creatures inhabiting even these islands, while with scarcely an exception there are no animals from which we cannot learn by intelligent observation. The ornithologists have worthily borne the heat and burden of the day in preceding volumes; it is to be hoped that their good example may be followed in other branches of our varied fauna. 'The Zoologist' invites the help of the successors and disciples of Yarrell, Bell, and Ray, of Knapp, "Rusticus," and Buckland.
In our pages a special interest will attach to Museum notes. It is of importance to zoologists to be reminded or informed in what institution or private museum the collections made by travelling and home naturalists are deposited; it is of even
