PREFACE. 
In the present Volume I have endeavoured to carry out, on a more extended scale, the 
principle which has been partially indicated in several of my smaller works ; namely, to 
present to the reader the outlines of zoologic knowledge in a form that shall be readily 
comprehended, while it is as intrinsically valuable as if it were couched in the most 
repellent vocabulary of conventional technicalities. In acting thus, an author must 
voluntarily abnegate the veneration which attaches itself to those who are the accre- 
dited possessors of abstruse learning, and must content himself with the satisfaction 
of having achieved the task which has been placed in his hands. In accordance with 
this principle, the technical language of scientific zoology has been carefully avoided, and 
English names have been employed wherever practicable in the place of Greek or Latin 
appellatives. 
The body of the work has been studiously preserved in a simple and readable form, 
and the more strictly scientific portions have been removed to the “Compendium of 
Generic Distinctions” at the end of the volume. In this Compendium the reader will 
find a brief notice of the various characteristics which are ‘employed by our best 
systematic naturalists, such as Owen, Gray, Van der Hoeven, and others, for the purpose 
of separating the different genera from each other; and by its-aid he will be enabled 
to place every animal in that position which it is at present supposed to occupy. Even 
in that Compendium simplicity of diction has been maintained. For example: the 
word “five-toed” has been substituted for “pentedactylous;” “pointed” for “acuminate ;” 
“ringed” for “annulate ;” together with innumerable similar instances which need no 
separate mention. 
Owing to the inordinate use of pseudo-classical phraseology, the fascinating study of 
animal life has been too long considered as a profession or a science restricted to a 
favoured few, and interdicted to the many until they have undergone a long apprentice- 
ship to its preliminary formule. So deeply rooted is this idea, that the popular notion of 
a sejentifie man is of one who possesses a fund of words, and not of one who has gathered 
