OF THE RISE OF SCIENTIFIC ZOOLOGY IN THE UNITED 
STATES, WITH NOTICES OF NATURALISTS PARTICU- 
LARLY CONNECTED WITH THE SUBJECT OF THIS WORK. 
The impulse given to the study of Natural History 
in Europe, at the close of the last and the commence- 
ment of the present century, by that eminent school of 
naturalists and philosophers 'which arose in France, 
contemporaneously -with its great political Revolution, 
imparted to the Natural Sciences an impoi-tance which 
they never before possessed. A crowd of gifted and 
ambitious minds, freed by that event from the shackles 
of established opinion, and thus enabled to direct their 
energies to such ends as suited their respective inclina- 
tions, entered upon a new career of intellectual exer- 
tion. With untiring perseverance, they investigated 
the past and present conditions of all organized exist- 
ences, and interrogating nature in the very recesses of 
her temple, drew from her responses a philosophy wbich 
swept away the received theories of that day, as com- 
pletely as the new political institutions took the place of 
the antiquated government to which they succeeded. 
