HABITS OF ANIMALS. 85 



domestic animals and the cultivated plants, are capable of 

 adapting themselves to various conditions more readily 

 than others ; but even this pliability is a characteristic 

 feature, These relations are highly important in a syste- 

 matic point of view, and deserve the most careful attention 

 on the part of naturalists. Yet, the direction which zoolo- 

 gical studies have taken since Comparative Anatomy and 

 Embryology began to absorb almost entirely the attention 

 of naturalists has been very unfavourable to the investi- 

 gation of the habits of animals, in which their relations to 

 one another and to the conditions under which they live 

 are more especially exhibited. We have to go back to the 

 authors of the preceding century 1 for the most inter- 

 esting accounts of the habits of animals, as among mo- 

 dern writers there are few who have devoted their chief 

 attention to this subject. 2 So little, indeed, is its import- 

 ance now appreciated, that the students of this branch of 

 natural history are hardly acknowledged as peers by their 

 fellow investigators, the anatomists and physiologists, or 

 the systematic zoologists. And yet, without a thorough 

 knowledge of the habits of animals, it will never be pos- 

 sible to ascertain with any degree of precision the true 

 limits of all those species which descriptive zoologists 

 have of late admitted with so much confidence into their 



1 REAUMUR (R. ANT. DE), Memoires London, 1818-26, 4 vols. 8vo., fig. 

 pour servir a 1'histoire des Insecfces; LENZ (H. 0.), Gemeinniitzige Natur- 

 Paris, 1834-42, 6 vols. 4to. fig. Ro- geschichte; Gotha, 1835, 4 vols. 8vo. 

 SEL (A. J.), Insectenbelustigungen ; RATZENBURG (J. TH. CH.), Die 

 Niirnberg, 1746-61, 4 vols. 4to., fig. Forst-Insekten ; Berlin, 1837-44, 3 

 BUFFON (G. L. LECLERC DE),Histoire vols. 4to. fig., and supplement. HAR- 

 uaturelle ge"nerale et particuliere ; RIS (T. W.), Report on the Insects 

 Paris, 1749, 44 vols. 4to., fig. injurious to Vegetation; Cambridge, 



2 AUDUBON (J. J.), Ornithological 1841, 1 vol. 8vo.; 2nd edit., A Trea- 

 Biography, or an Account of the Ha- tise on some of the Insects of New 

 bits of the Birds of the United States England which are injurious to Vege- 

 of America; Edinburgh, 1831-49,5 tation ; Boston, 1852, 8vo. The most 

 vols. 8vo. KIRBY (W.) and SPENCE important work on American In- 

 (W.), An Introduction to Entomology; sects. 



