This volume is a collection of some of the papers which I have contributed to the Daily Telegraph during the years 1908-1909, under the title “Science from an Easy Chair.” I have revised and corrected the letterpress, and have added some illustrations. A smaller volume containing earlier papers was published by Messrs. Constable in 1908, with the title From an Easy Chair. It is my intention now to produce additional volumes (under the title “Easy Chair Series”) as their constituent articles accumulate, and I hope to be able to publish a second and a third instalment at no distant date.

I should like to draw the special attention of the reader to the Frontispiece (Plate I.), which is very beautifully executed, and is, I believe, the first coloured drawing yet published showing the difference between the adult “silver” eel and the more abundant immature “yellow” eel—sometimes called the “frogmouthed eel.” The original drawings were prepared for me through the kindness of Dr. Petersen, of Copenhagen, who is the discoverer of many interesting facts about the common eel, and is director of the Danish Biological Laboratory.

I also wish to draw the attention of any one who is kind enough to look at this preface to one or two more of my illustrations, because they are, I think, of exceptional interest, and should be looked at, at once, before a decision not to read the book is made. These are the prehistoric engraving of a horse’s head, with rope-bridle in place, on page 81; the drawings of the leaves of the American Poison-vine and of the Virginian Creeper on page 95; of the nettle-sting on page 113; of the Dragon of the Hesperides on page 122; of the big tadpoles on page 217; of the jumping bean on page 298, and its moth on page 301; of the ant milking a green-fly for its honey-dew on page 324; and lastly, the accurate drawing on page 370 of the most ancient human skull yet discovered, and the other drawings of skulls (all to the scale of one-third the actual length), and those of prehistoric weapons and carvings which follow it. These drawings have been made from original scientific memoirs, or in some cases from actual specimens, for the present volume.

E. RAY LANKESTER

February 1910