PREFACE. IX 



dinavy observer could perceive little utility. In this retro- 

 grade movement of British naturalists Mr Pennant led the 

 way, and the completion of his British Zoology, in four vo- 

 lumes, in 1777, gave a new aspect to the science in this country. 

 This naturalist possessed favourable means for study, and no 

 inconsiderable share of industry ; but being rather deficient in 

 a knowledge of physiology, he unfortunately seems to have 

 undervalued all that his predecessors had gleaned in that fruit- 

 ful field, and confined his labours chiefly to an acquaintance 

 with the external characters of animals. He succeeded in im- 

 parting to his writings a considerable degree of popularity, by 

 avoiding all minute details, and introducing occasional remarks 

 on the habits of particular species; and by allusions to Greek 

 and Roman authors, he interested the classical reader. In his 

 account of the Vertebral Animals, his materials were chiefly de- 

 rived from the writings of Willoughby, Ray, and Sibbald, 

 while LisTEE supplied the groundwork of the Shells. It is 

 in the class Crustacea that Mr Pennant appears chiefly as an 

 original author, earning reputation in a department of the 

 science which his predecessors had in a great measure neglected. 

 The Spiders, Insects, and Zoophytes, did not engage his atten- 

 tion. 



In order to facilitate the researches of the student of British 

 zoology, Dr Berkenhout published abridged characters of 

 the species in 1769, under the title " Outlines^'' ^c. and a third 

 edition more enlarged, in 1795, included in the " Synopsis of 

 the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland.'''' In the 

 first volume of this work, the characters of the species of Bri- 

 tish Animals are drawn up with a degree of care and accuracy 

 unequalled in any subsequent publication of a similar kind. 

 In 1802 Mr Stewart attempted a similar work, on a more 

 enlarged plan, in two volumes, entitled Elements of the Na- 

 tural History of the Animal Kingdom. This work includes, 

 besides the British species, the characters of the more common 

 genera of foreign animals. A new edition appeared in 1817, 

 deficient, however, in the account of the more recently publish- 

 ed species, and in some instances faulty by introducing the same 

 species twice under different genera. 

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