OUR COMPLIMENTS TO OUR READERS.

HE completion of our Fourth Volume with the issue of this forty-eighth Number, gives us an opportunity, which we cannot afford to lose, of saying a few words to our friends and supporters. When our first Number made its appearance it was almost alone amongst periodicals devoted to popular Natural History: since that period several others have been commenced. To us this is a source of gratification, and by no means one of regret: there is room enough for all. The increase of journals and the widening influence of Natural History pursuits, have apparently kept pace with each other; whilst our own has steadily and progressively found its way into the remote corners of the world, almost wherever the English language is spoken, and never shown a tendency to fall back from the eminence it attained at the first.

If we may judge from the opinions expressed, not only by our correspondents but by scientific men with whom we have come in contact, a steady and continuous improvement has characterized our "Gossip" from its first to its forty-eighth number. If this be true, and we believe it is, it promises well also for the future. The spirit of progress bids us hope.

The occasional hints and suggestions we receive are evidence of the interest which many of our correspondents possess in our success. Of course we cannot adopt all the suggestions, but they may often have a salutary influence. Those who urge us to be less gossiping and more technical, or as it is sometimes phrased, "take a higher standing," undoubtedly mean well, but they altogether mistake what we are fain to regard as our "mission." It is not our object or ambition to become what is called a "scientific journal." Ours is a "GOSSIP," and it is our aim to gossip freely, in as untechnical a manner as possible, on

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scientific subjects, so that even those of our readers who have not had a scientific training, who have no systematic knowledge of Zoology or Botany, or the cognate sciences, and who have no adequate leisure for such pursuits, may read with pleasure and understanding.

Those who complain, on the other hand, that we have a tendency to become too scientific, we always listen to with respect; it is, we are well aware, the greatest of all our dangers, and needs constant effort to control. Literally we cannot be too scientific, if by that is meant the truth of science; but it is quite possible to communicate truth in common-place language, free from technicalities, or too close a regard for minute specific distinctions. Men who are accustomed to address their remarks to coadjutors acquainted with their phraseology, accustomed to technicalities, to terse descriptions, to rigid accuracy in definition, are apt to forget themselves in addressing a non-scientific public, and to take too much for granted. Far be it from us to condemn the technicalities of science, or to underrate the value of terse and accurate description in communications between men of science, but to gossip with the outside world is quite another thing.

This public opportunity for thanking our numerous contributors for their help in the past, and for soliciting their future aid, must also be accompanied by thanks equally hearty, in which many of our correspondents will also join, to those gentlemen who have so kindly in their various branches of science answered queries, named specimens, and otherwise assisted us and them, and contributed much to our

success.

Finally, we promise for the future to do our best still to merit the support and congratulations of our readers, so that year by year, as we wish for them, so they may wish for us,—

"A HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.