PREFACE. 
It has long appeared to me, that an Introduction to the Animal 
Kingdom, in a convenient form, was a desideratum in the Eng¬ 
lish language. So far back as 1817, I announced my intention 
of laying such a work before the public, which circumstances 
have prevented till the present time. The following pages con¬ 
tain the substance of that work, now altered and amended to 
suit the present extended and improved Zoological systems. 
The Quadrupeds are very nearly a translation of Cuvier’s ar¬ 
rangement, in the last edition of his Regne Animal. 
In the Birds I have principally followed Temminck; but 
have introduced a few genera of Vieillot’s, and others, which 
possess characters sufficiently marked, to entitle them to that 
rank. 
The Reptiles are agreeable to the arrangement of Brongniart, 
which Cuvier has followed in his Animal Kingdom. 
The Fishes are after the method of Cuvier. 
In the Invertebral Animals, Lamarck is principally followed, 
only I have pursued the descending scale, from man down to 
the lowest degree of animal existence. In the Mollusca and 
Conchifera, I have found it necessary to introduce various new 
genera, several of which are those of my friend Dr Leach, and 
others my own. 
The Insects are an abridgment of the system of the cele¬ 
brated Latreille. In this department I have been constrained, 
from its extent, to limit myself to the orders and families, with 
