JO 



INTRODUCTION. 



perfectly assigned, by Nature would be futile, for she leaves no 

 gap in her system of affinities. Her circle is so very complete 

 that when the various members of it have been scattered, and 

 some lost, like a vast universal puzzle which has been minutely 

 subdivided beyond human research, it is impossible to rearrange 

 them in their original entirety in any circumscribed spot of 

 earth. 



Like one species Nature is perfect, for, as each bird is com- 

 2)osed of countless feathers and downs, so was her system at 

 first, in faultless order — like one species — from the golden eagle 

 to the golden-crested wren ; from the condor to the humming- 

 bird ; from the light and airy swallow to the clumsy, short- 

 winged auk — with all the intervening species minutely dovetailed 

 in between, until broken by time and civilization : some driven 

 away from certain localities by drainage ; some lost altogether, 

 like the dodo from the globe, or the great bustard from the fens 

 of Lincolnshire. 



But, after all, the study of each species, with its more 

 immediate genera, affords abundant scope to every one of us. 

 Were naturalists as anxious to describe species by themselves 

 as they are sometimes so minute in their definition to affine 

 what they consider the proper place of each in their presumed 

 genera, families, and orders, the study of Natural History would 

 be much simplified and very much enhanced ; instead of warm 

 discussions about the unravelling of a tangled skein, which if 

 unravelled would only prove what science already knows — the 

 faultless order and complete perfection of Nature. 



Maunder's "Treasury of Natural History" says — "It has 

 long been customary to apply the terms animal kingdom, 

 vegetable kingdom, and mineral kingdom to the three grand 

 portions of the ' mighty whole ' — into which, when speaking of 

 the science of Natural History, the countless productions of the 

 earth are systematically divided." 



In this simple and obvious arrangement the animal kingdom 

 is conspicuously pre-eminent, as it comprehends all organised 

 beings provided with a mouth and stomach, and endowed with 

 the powers of sensation and voluntary locomotion. The animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms are, however, so intimately blended 

 together that this description is an insufficient guide to dis- 

 tinguish those organised beings which may be said to be on the 

 confines of either kingdom. The possession of nerves being- 

 indispensable to the power of motion — a nervous system has 

 been considered the distinguishing characteristic of the animal 



