IV PREFACE. 



formed in every parish. * Finding it impracticable to present a 

 satisfactory general summary of the progress of Natural History 

 throughout Europe, for the past year, we have given the best sub- 

 stitute for such a summary, an abridged translation of the Baron 

 Cuvier's Report for France, p. 409. 



The great use of Natural History and Comparative Anatomy is 

 to humanise and soften the heart. If boys were acquainted with 

 the wonderful structure of insects, and of other animals low in the 

 scale, they would not be found sticking pins into flies, or torment- 

 ing cats ; nor, when men, would they treat those noble domestic 

 animals, the horse and the ox, with cruelty. The girl who has 

 learned to derive enjoyment from observing the operations and 

 watching the metamorphoses of insects, who knows their history, 

 and is conversant with their structure, habits, and curious eco- 

 nomy, will mark these circumstances in animals higher in the 

 scale ; and, ascending to her own species, will learn also the 

 elevation of her own nature. As she grows up to womanhood, 

 she will feel more intensely the delicacy and dignity of the 

 feminine character, and resist with more force the temptations 

 which always beset innocence, amiability, and inexperience, both 

 from without and from within. The mind rationally occupied 

 with the study of nature, will no longer seek refuge from ennui 

 in bad novels ; and the same superior taste for information, and 

 the same admiration of the wisdom of Nature, as displayed in her 

 works, will lead to a more select choice of companions, male as 

 well as female. 



To procure the advantages resulting from the knowledge of 

 Natural History, at the easiest rate of labour, recourse must be had 

 to scientific study, which is to the acquirement of knowledge what 

 machinery is to the production of manufactures. To render this 

 machinery available to every reader, and especially to young per- 

 sons, without the aid of a teacher, is the principal object of the 

 Magazine of Natural History ; in conducting which we have only 

 to assure our readers, that the most unremitting exertion on our 

 part will be continued, in order to secure success, and to procure 

 for the work the honourable reputation of having given an impulse 

 to the mind of the country in matters of Natural Science. 



J. C. L. 



Bay&watery Oct. 25. 1829. 



* See " Parochial Institutions; or, Outline of a Plan for a National Education 

 Establishment," &c., in the Gardener s Mngawie for December. 



