Excerpt from Contributions to the Natural History of the IsopodaThe difficulties which meet the systematist are but little understood or appreciated by those engaged in other fields of biological work. The morphologist, the embryologist, the physiologist give him but lit tle encouragement and sympathy. Prof. Charles C. N utting very adequately described the situation in his recent address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and made an urgent appeal for cooperation with and leniency toward the man who toils over the hard and often thankless task of classification.Those who have studied special groups of animals or plants realize the difficulties that have to be overcome and the problems that must be faced. The path is not always easy nor the way clear.In the following pages the object has not been to give an exhaustive treatment of the Isopod group. The attempt is made to bring together by way of introduction facts of general interest, describing brie¿y the systematic position, structure, habitat, distribution, mode of life, development, and other points of interest in connection with the group, and to present, in detail, descriptions and figures of a number of new species and genera, which are the result of independent work on material collected by several different parties. These collections were made (1) by the U. S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross and by the U. S. S. Palos in Japan, (2) by Messrs. Jordan and Snyder in Japan, and (3) by Dr. C. H. Gilbert at Panama and Mazatlan. Lastly, a large number of Bopyridae in the U. S. National Museum collection have been worked up and also included.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.