PREFACE. 



THE following pages, briefly descriptive of the economy of 

 Seals, Dugongs, and Whales, and of their principal fossil 

 allies, form the 2nd Part, or Section B, of an "Elementary 

 Treatise on the Mammalia," designed for the use of the 

 more advanced pupils in the Public Schools of this Country 

 under the direction of the Council of Education. 



In issuing this portion of the work in question before 

 the i st Part or Section A, I feel that I have travelled out of 

 the order of arrangement, as specified in the proposed 

 synopsis of the Mammalian group in page 2, ; some remarks, 

 therefore, by way of explanation for leaving the " ungui- 

 culata" to be hereafter dealt with, become necessary. 



Whatever information we possess upon the natural 

 history of the finned mammals, particularly in a popular, 

 yet scientific form, has been so scantily and unequally dis- 

 tributed, that in this direction a comparatively new field 

 may be said to be open to the teacher as well as to the 

 youthful inquirer. 



Influenced, also, by the great commercial value of several 

 species of the pinnata, I have felt anxiously desirous to 

 direct without further delay the attention, and thus possibly 

 secure the sympathy, of readers, other than students, to the 

 necessity of prompt legislative interference, in order to 

 protect the oil and fur producing animals of our hemi- 



