the british - Corning Museum of Glass

vi PREFACE.
by Dr. Johnston has hitherto been the English naturalist's only
guide to the study of these creatures; and notwithstanding the
value of this work in many points, the almost utter worthless-
ness of their specific characters has been often confessed. That
excellent zoologist lived on a coast where the Anemones are feebly
represented; and hence his personal acquaintance with species was
very small, or the result would doubtless have been different.
The elaborate "Histoire Naturelle des Coralliaires" of M.
Milne-Edwards is liable to the same objection. A work of
immense research, labour, and patience, it bears evidence in every
page of being the produce of the museum and the closet, not of
the aquarium and the shore. With those species which possess
no stony skeleton, the learned author evidently had no acquaint-
ance,—or next to none;—and hence he has merely reproduced
the words of his authorities in all their vagueness; while the
distribution of the species into genera and families appears so
full of manifest error to one personally familiar with the animals
in a living state, that I have not attempted to follow his
arrangement.
I have been compelled, therefore, to draw up the characters of
my subjects de novo; and in doing so I have resorted to nature
itself; I have studied the living animals. For the last eight
years I have searched the most prolific parts of the British shores,
—the coast of Dorset, South and North Devon, and South
Wales; and have moreover, as the following pages show, had
poured into my aquaria the productions of almost every other
part of our coasts,—from the Channel Isles to the Shetlands.
For these last I am indebted to the kindness of many zealous
scientific friends, whose names appear in this volume, and to
whom I here express my grateful obligation; especially distin-
guishing Mr. F. H. West of Leeds, and the Rev. W. Gregor
of Macduff, as pre-eminent in their contributions.
The result is that seventy-five species find their places in
these pages, five of which are merely indicated, leaving seventy
good species, exclusive of the Lucernariadæ. Of these twenty-