Nature is nowhere to be seen to greater perfection than in 

 the very smallest of her works. For this reason then, I must 

 beg of my readers, notwithstanding the contempt they may feel 

 for many of these objects, not to feel a similar disdain for the 

 information I am about to give relative thereto, seeing that 

 in the study of nature, there is none of her works that is un- 

 worthy of our consideration. 



Pliny.^ 



1 Trans, of Bostock and Riley. 

 i8 



