vi PREFACE. 
a mass of ideas. There is really not the least reason why any one of ordinary capabilities 
and moderate memory should not be acquainted with the general outlines of zoology, and 
possess some knowledge of the representative animals, which serve as types of each 
group, tribe, or family ; for when relieved of the cumbersome diction with which it is 
embarrassed, the study of animal life can be brought within the comprehension of all 
who care to examine the myriad varieties of form and colour with which the Almighty 
clothes His living poems. 
The true object of Zoology is not, as some appear to fancy, to arrange, to number, and 
to ticket animals in a formal inventory, but to make the study an inquiry into the Life- 
nature, and not only an investigation of the lifeless organism. I must not, however, be 
understood to disparage the outward form, thing of clay though it be. For what 
wondrous clay it is, and how marvellous the continuous miracle by which the dust 
of earth is transmuted into the glowing colours and graceful forms which we most 
imperfectly endeavour to preserve after the soul has departed therefrom. It is a great 
thing to be acquainted with the material framework of any creature, but it is a far 
ereater to know something of the principle which gave animation to that structure. 
The former, indeed, is the consequence of the latter. The lion, for example, is not 
predacious because it possesses fangs, talons, strength, and activity; on the contrary, 
it possesses these qualities because its inmost nature is predacious, and it needs these 
appliances to enable it to carry out the innate principle of its being; so that the truest 
description of the lion is that which treats of the animating spirit, and not only of the 
outward form. In accordance with this principle, it has been my endeavour to make 
the work rather anecdotal and vital than merely anatomical and scientific. The object of 
a true zoologist is to search into the essential nature of every being, to investigate, 
according to his imdividual capacity, the reason why it should have been placed on 
earth, and to give his personal service to his Divine Master in developing that nature 
in the best manner and to the fullest extent. 
What do we know of Man from the dissecting room? Of Man, the warrior, the 
statesman, the poet, or the saint? In the lifeless corpse there are no records of the 
burning thoughts, the hopes, loves, and fears that once animated that now passive form, 
and which constituted the very essence of the being. Every nerve, fibre, and particle in 
the dead bodies of the king and the beggar, the poet and the boor, the saint and the 
sensualist, may be separately traced, and anatomically they shall all be alike, for neither 
of the individuals is there, and on the dissecting table lies only the cast-off attire that 
the spirit no longer needs. What can an artist learn even of the outward form of Man, 
if he lives only in the dissecting room, and studies the human frame merely through 
the medium of scalpel and scissors? He may, indeed, obtain an accurate muscular 
outline, but it will be an outline of a cold and rigid corpse, suggestive only of the charnel- 
house, and devoid of the soft and rounded form, the delicate tinting, and breathing grace 
