PREFACE.
A Preface to the yearly volume of 'The Zoologist' pertains to an annual stock-taking, for it must be judged largely by our contributors' additions to zoological knowledge.
The Mammalia have received special attention. The paper by Prof. J.C. Ewart on "Zebra-Horse Hybrids" may prove to be of an epoch-making nature both in Africa and India. The Indian fauna has again asserted its interest, while Mr. Oldfield Thomas has proposed a canon of nomenclature for British mammals. On the species of our own fauna many valuable notes have appeared.
The class Aves still remains the favourite study of very many of our contributors, and our pages have again contained new facts in British Ornithology. Mr. Ernst Hartert has called attention to an "hitherto overlooked British bird" in a Marsh Tit, Parus salicarius, Brehm. The presence of the White Wagtail (Motacilla alba) in Ireland, the Pectoral Sandpiper (Tringa maculata) in Norfolk and Kent, the Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria) in Lincolnshire, the continued visitation of the Melodious Warbler (Hypolais polyglotta) in South Devon, and the nesting of the Nightingale so far west as Wells in Somerset, are among some of the many avian records we have received and published.
Reptilia and Pisces have not been neglected, and we are glad to see the Crustacea more prominent on our literary menu. The Stalk-eyed Crustacea of Great Yarmouth, and the Malacostracous Crustacea of a section of Australia have been detailed; while a note on "The Struggle for Existence among Hermit Crabs" shows the vast interest attaching to observations on the lives of these creatures. The same remark applies to the Arachnida, on
