8 INTRODUCTION. 



love of fitness, induced by a taste for facts, maybe called the 

 universal morality. Neither interferes with the religion or 

 morality of any particular country, climate, or people. 



An extended knowledge of natural history will not take 

 place without producing corresponding improvements in taste, 

 literature, and the elegant arts. A knowledge, in readers and 

 spectators, of natural forms and appearances, will demand 

 a greater accuracy in the delineation of them by the artist 

 and the man of letters. The public taste in painting, sculp- 

 ture, and architecture is gradually improving; and no in- 

 considerable part of the improvement will be found to consist 

 in the more correct representation of natural objects. The 

 same improvement in taste has extended to our different 

 manufactures, and especially to the figures printed on cotton, 

 paper, and earthenware ; the superiority in these and other 

 articles of British manufacture, is acknowledged to consist, in 

 a great degree, in a more correct imitation of plants, animals, 

 and general scenery. 



Such are the pleasures and advantages of the study of 

 natural history. The main object of this Magazine is to ren- 

 der a taste for this study more general among all classes of 

 society. In order to extend it among readers of leisure and 

 general observation, and also among gardeners, farmers, and 

 young persons resident in the country, we propose to 

 subject every part of the science to discussion; to invite 

 every reader to communicate every circumstance, even the 

 most trivial, respecting the native habits and economy of ani- 

 mals, the habits and habitations of plants, the localities of 

 minerals and strata, and respecting peculiar or striking states 

 of the atmosphere ; to encourage all who are desirous of in- 

 formation, to propose questions, to state their doubts, the kind 

 of information they desire, or their particular opinions, on 

 any part of the subject. Observations which, at first sight, may 

 appear trivial, are often truly valuable when viewed in refer- 

 ence to general conclusions ; and this kind of information may 

 be furnished by persons wholly unacquainted with natural 

 history as a science, but who, by such exercises, are adopting 

 the most certain and efficacious means of becoming scientific 

 observers. In this way we hope to call forth a new and numer- 

 ous class of naturalists. 



We intend, also, for the benefit of such as have never paid 

 any attention to the elements of natural history, to give a 

 series of introductory papers in each of the five departments ; 

 and after these are completed, to give a general view of the 

 subjects of each department. These papers will necessarily 

 extend through several volumes ; but they will, in the end, 



