CLASSIFICATION. 45 



lities having now been given, an investigation 

 of the scientific classification, and more lengthy 

 details of the most interesting genera and species, 

 will follow ; the reader or student will then be 

 enabled to understand the more learned works of 

 Ehrenberg and Pritchard, whose volumes are 

 so often quoted, and to whom these pages are 

 indebted for many of the~descriptions. 



The object of this little book is not to treat scien- 

 tifically of the minute forms mentioned, but only 

 to induce the lover of nature to search into their 

 curious history, and also to prepare the student 

 for more learned works ; the classification will 

 not, therefore, be entered upon minutely a short 

 account only of the great classes into which they 

 are divided will be sufficient. But it must first 



