viii INTRODUCTION 



This ratio does not mean that the Americas are faunally richer than the 

 other continents, but rather that American naturalists have been more active 

 and have supplied the scientist with more material than the others. 



It must, however, be remembered that the public demand is for Natural 

 History lore of two kinds- 



First Concerning the wild creatures one occasionally sees in the woods. 



Second Concerning the strange animals one continually sees in menag- 

 eries and museums. 



As a matter of fact the latter are sometimes nearer to us, more truly 

 ours, than are the natives of our own country. It is tolerably certain that 

 more persons know, see, and are interested in an Indian Leopard, not to say 

 an African Lion, than in the Ocelot of Central America and Mexico. More 

 persons are curious about the East Indian Bird of Paradise than about its 

 distant relative, our own Rio Grande Xanthura, and are much more likely 

 to be familiar with the Elephant from Africa, than with its American 

 representative, the Tapir from Guatemala. 



Thus it will be seen that a large number of animals which have a place 

 in menageries and museums, as well as in literature, have established greater 

 claims on our notice than have rare and obscure species in our own country. 



To meet this condition THE NEW NATURAL HISTORY is happily con- 

 ceived. The child, as well as the professor, can turn to it certain to get 

 the latest general facts about the new strange creature that has arrived at 

 this or that menagerie. He can there learn something of its habits, its 

 country, its relations to other and better known forms, and also inform him- 

 self about that other creature that was trapped the night before, in the hen- 

 house of his farmer neighbor. 



There is about this work little to criticise. Advanced American sys- 

 tematists may take exception to the somewhat antiquated nomenclature which 

 occasionally appears. The school to which the editor belongs has yet to learn 

 the lesson accepted years ago by the American systematic zoologists, that 

 priority is the only stable foundation for taxonomy. But this objection is 

 not likely to appeal strongly to the public, especially as Mr. Lydekker has 

 erred on the side of conservatism. 



The strongest features of the work are the masterly generalizations with 

 which each group is introduced generalization for the most part from the 

 pen of the editor and the vast collection of superb illustrations. 



To this latter most of the leading animal-artists have contributed, and th e 

 result is probably the best general series of nature illustrations ever brought 

 together in one publication a series worthy of the text and forming with 

 it a work that is easily the best and most reliable in the field of popular 

 Natural History, and one that is not likely to be superseded in the near future. 



