the reader--that the materials for the following work were originally put into his hands in an unconnected and well-nigh unintelligible state,--they were literally a "'nudis indigestaque moles," which required considerable labour and persovering industry in order to their being gradually moulded into the form in which they now appear;--and that he has again been prevailed upon to bestow more than a little labour upon the revision, enlargement, and, he thinks, improvement of the work. For the Notes now introduced, he (the editor) bogs to state, that _he alone_ is responsible:--Mr. Nutt has had no hand _in them_. Thereforc if they, viz. the notes, or any of them, should, and they probably may, excite hostility in certain quarters, that hostility can in fairness be directed against _him only,_ and not against Nutt. It should be remembered too, that those two or three writers, who have been chastised, have, in the plenitude of their zeal for, and admiration of, exploded and antiquated systems of Bee-management, or out of jeolousy and envy of Nutt's improved plans, uncharitably and rashly, if not maliciously and out of sheer ill-will to Nutt, attempted--vainly attempted--to write him down : therefore, however sore those writers, critical or professional, as the case may be, may feel under the castigation that has been occasionally bestowed upon them, it will be seen, and perhaps allowed--that they themselves have provoked it,--and consequently that they deserve it. Dr. Bevan may nibble, and egg on Dunbar to disgrace himself by his pitiful calculations,--the Quarterly may be big and dictatorial ; but neither the one nor the other, aided by all their _mercenary_ auxiliaries, can convince the unprecjudiced reader that Nutt is not the inventor of his own collateral Bee-boxes. Because White, nearly a century ago, enlarged his _wooden_ hives by adding to them plain, wooden boxes, having very imperfect communication with the mother-boxes, and totally without the means of ventilation, and without under-boxes, therefore they--Dr. Bevan and the Quarterly--hold that White, and not Nutt, was the inventor of Bee-boxes! As reasonably might they maintain that, because a boiling tea-kettle throws out steam, the tinker, or whover he was that made the first tea-kettle, was the inventor of Watt's steam-engine. Nutt's boxes are as superior to White's as the steam engine is to a tea-kettle. No one, however--not even Bevan--has yet had the hardihood to deny Nutt the merit of having invented the inverted-hive; which, when properly stocked and well-managed, affords one of the most pleasing and beautiful sights that an apiarian can contemplate. Why has not this invention been attacked? why, but because it is unassailable? Lastly, and by way of blunting one at least of the distardly shafts that the skulking concealed skirmishers may perchance be pleased to level at him, the editor states positively--that he neither has, nor claims, nor expects to have, any part or share of the profits arising from the sale of this work; and further--that he never had, nor ever claimed to have, any part or share of the profits already realized,--nor has he ever stipulated for any remuneration in any shape whatever.