been curated with painstaking care by successive heads of the Arachnida Section, and in accordance with the terms of the gift it has been maintained as a discrete entity. However, although the need has long been recognized, the Museum has been unable to prepare a catalogue for publication. Thus, it was particularly pleasing to be able to welcome J. E. Keirans of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, Mont., an authority of international standing on the Metastigmata, as a visiting scientist to the Arachnida Section, and to provide him with the facilities for a 12-month study of the Nuttall collection with a view to producing a critical catalogue. He has completed the task with notable suc cess. Tick workers everywhere will be greatly indebted to him, and, having been directly responsible for the curation of the Nuttall collection for several years, I feel privileged to have been invited to contribute the foreword to this important work. словие J. G. Sheals Preface The Nuttall collection of ticks, which had never been revised and updated in toto, was discussed in the autumn of 1976 with the acarology staff of the British Museum (Natural History). This collection had been donated to the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) in 1939 by the Molteno Institute for Research in Parasitology, Cambridge University. The staff agreed that to have this important historical collection, rich in type specimens, entirely reidentified and updated would benefit the Museum. I agreed that, as a systematist on Ixodoidea from the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), U.S. Public Health Service, it would be advantageous for RML because we were entering all data relating to the two largest tick collections in the world, the RML collection and that of Harry Hoogstraal, Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3 (NAMRU-3), Cairo, Egypt, into the computer at the U.S. National Museum of Natural History. With the addition of Professor Nuttall's collection, data on the three most important tick collections in the world would become available to researchers. In addition, the Nuttall collection contains type specimens for over 150 tick species and numerous species of medical and veterinary importance collected from all over the world. Accurate determination of these species would be beneficial to all tick workers. I began a year's visit to the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) in August 1977 for the purpose of reidentifying the Nuttall tick collection. This research was supported by the Office of International Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. This publication brings up to date, in a slightly revised form, Nuttall's "Catalogue of Ticks," a three-volume handwritten journal, never before published but certainly a work that leading tick specialists have found one of the most useful single references on the Ixodoidea. The Nuttall catalogue, as now updated and revised, is a historical record of an exceedingly important group of ectoparasites. Because of Professor Nuttall's diligent listing of all relevant collection data relating to his ticks, combined with those data from the RML and NAMRU-3 tick collections, we will undoubtedly be able to better understand tick-host relationships, geographical distribution patterns, and seasonal dynamics within the Ixodoidea. Acknowledgments The following persons are gratefully acknowledged: At the British Museum (Natural History), J. Gordon Sheals, Keeper of Zoology, kindly invited me to conduct this research on Professor Nuttall's tick collection; Keith H. Hyatt, Arachnida and Myriapoda Section, freely provided access to the Nuttall collection plus space, tools, and time to study this material; Anne S. Baker, Arachnida and Myriapoda Section, provided rare and obscure references relating to Professor Nuttall that are available only in the library of the British Museum (Nat. Hist.). A special thanks, also, to Bernice E. Brewster, formerly of the Arachnida and Myriapoda Section, who provided host and locality information for which I am most grateful. Donald Macfarlane, Commonwealth Institute of Entomology, through his knowledge of the British records office, was instrumental in enabling me to trace the daughter and son of Professor Nuttall. Macfarlane also provided invaluable assistance in solving certain British conventions in housing, schooling, banking, and so forth, for which my family and I are most grateful. Dennis W. Babbage, emeritus fellow and former president, and Ralph E. Bennett, president, Magdalene College, Cambridge University, were gracious in assisting me in gathering background material on Professor Nuttall's later days at Cambridge. To the following authorities on the |