WILLIAM SMELLIE. 41 



5. On dreaming and somnambulism. 



6. On hibernation, or the torpid state to which 

 some animals are reduced during winter. 



7. On the language of beasts. 



8. Miscellaneous remarks on the comparative 

 pleasures and sufferings of animals. 



9. On poisonous animals, with an account of 

 hydrophobia. 



Mr Smellie thus concludes the work, 

 " I have now finished my original plan, with 

 what success I know not. I shall only say, what 

 every intelligent reader will easily perceive, that 

 my labours have been great. Before I began 

 the work, had I known the numerous authors 

 which it was necessary to peruse and consult, I 

 should probably have shrunk back, and given up 

 the attempt as impracticable, especially for a 

 man so early engaged in the business of life, and v 

 the cares resulting from a family of no less than 

 thirteen children, ten of whom are still in life. 



" In the first and second volumes I have 

 endeavoured to unfold the general as well as 

 distinctive properties of the vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms. Occasionally I have done more. I 

 have sometimes given pretty full characters both 

 of the figure, dispositions, and manners of 

 animals. In these descriptive discursions MAN 

 has not been neglected. Being the principal 

 animal in this planet, he of course deserved 

 particular attention, and it has not been withheld. 

 The varieties of the human species in every 

 region of the globe, have been collected and 



