iv PREFACE 



Unfortunately, few can undertake the pursuit of 

 natural history without some kind of assistance. A 

 certain amount of book-knowledge is found to be 

 indispensable, and yet, to the mind not accustomed to 

 them, preliminary definitions and statements about 

 unfamiliar objects are apt to prove so dry as to 

 smother the nascent interest instead of stimulating 

 and encouraging it. 



The author of this book has endeavoured to meet 

 this difficulty and to give a certain amount of intro- 

 ductory information in an attractive manner. Calling 

 to his aid the interest we always feel in human 

 character, he has attempted, by intertwining this 

 with a certain amount of more or less authentic 

 information on natural history subjects, to produce 

 a book that shall foster an interest in zoology. 



Without pretending that his dramatis personce are 

 equal to those of Shakespeare, or that his scientific 

 attainments are on a par with those of Owen and 

 Huxley, we think it will be admitted that he has 

 succeeded, at any rate "indifferently well," in his 

 task ; and his book, which it appears has had a con- 

 siderable success in France, has therefore been 

 thought worthy of an introduction to the English 

 leading public by means of a translation. 



The "science" in the book is but slight, but it is 

 hoped that it will be found sufficiently interesting to 

 induce the reader to look for himself or herself at 



