An Oxford-educated clergyman and prolific writer on natural history topics ranging from seashore wildlife to microscopy, John George Wood (1827 89) wrote and lectured for a receptive Victorian audience. His books were not rigorously scientific, but they made their subjects accessible to laypeople and were said to have inspired many future naturalists in their youth. His Nature's Teachings (1877) has also been reissued in this series. Theodore Wood (1862 1923) published this biography of his father in 1890. The account covers Wood's childhood and education, his clerical work and his desire to...

A professor of natural history at Caen and a member of the Academie des Sciences, Jean Vincent Felix Lamouroux (1779 1825) made significant contributions to the field of marine biology. Following the appearance in 1816 of his Histoire des polypiers corralligenes flexibles, he published in 1821 the present work, drawing upon John Ellis and Daniel Solander's seminal Natural History of Many Curious and Uncommon Zoophytes (1786). It divides more than 130 genera known at the time into twenty groupings. Taxonomy has progressed considerably since Lamouroux's day, yet this work, complete with...