With regard to describing the colours of the stamps, we have met with the usual difficulty of at once satisfying our own opinions, and those of various friends whom we have occasionally questioned as to what they would call the colour of such or such a stamp, and we do not think we have got out of the difficulty either better or worse than other compilers of catalogues usually do, the differences of opinion we have met with, as to the proper names by which to call certain shades, being generally hopelessly irreconcilable. No reference to other works is of much use; for instance, we find the one shilling of 1874 called “dirty rose colour” in the _Stamp Collector’s Magazine_, “dull rose-pink” in the _Philatelist_, “lilac-rose” in the London Society’s list, “pink” by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co., “_rose sale_” in Moens’ Catalogue, and “lake” in Messrs. Stanley Gibbons & Co.’s price list. It must be confessed that all this is very confusing, and we are afraid that collectors will always find the task of distinguishing between the earlier red shillings of St. Vincent rather a difficult one. Fortunately there are not many cases in this Colony where the identification of a particular stamp depends on the description of its colour alone, as we are generally helped to the desired conclusion either by the watermark or the perforation. We think that the two plates of autotype illustrations accompanying this work will be found something more than mere embellishments, and will be of real use to our readers as a means of discriminating between genuine and false surcharges, and also of distinguishing the various perforations alluded to in our text. There are many interesting questions connected with the perforating machines used by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co., as well as with the papers, unwatermarked and watermarked, employed by them for the numerous British Colonies to which they supplied stamps; but in this handbook we do not propose to enter into these questions more fully than is absolutely necessary for elucidating our subject. We intend to do so at greater length in a handbook of the stamps of Barbados, now in course of preparation. This country is much more complex than St. Vincent, both in its watermarks and perforations, and a thorough knowledge of the stamps of the latter Colony will prove to be of the greatest assistance when the more difficult subject of Barbados comes to be studied. The stamps of St. Vincent are remarkable, inasmuch as this is the only British Colony that still continues to print the whole of its stamps from line-engraved plates. This is certainly noteworthy when we bear in mind that since the year 1883 the stamps have been printed by Messrs. De La Rue & Co., whose name is generally associated with surface-printed stamps.