X PREFACE. 



The following Natural History is written, with 

 only such an attention to system as serves to re- 

 move the reader's embarrassments and allure him 

 to proceed. It can make no pretensions in direct- 

 ing him to the name of every object he meets with; 

 that belongs to works of a very different kind, and 

 written with very different aims. It will fully an- 

 swer my design, if the reader, being already pos- 

 sessed of the name of any animal, shall find here a 

 short, though satisfactory history of its habitudes, 

 its subsistence, its manners, its friendships and 

 hostilities. My aim has been to carry on just as 

 much method as was sufficient to shorten my de- 

 scriptions by generalizing them, and never to fol- 

 low order where the art of writing, which is but 

 another name for good sense, informed me that 

 it would only contribute to the reader's embarrass- 

 ment. 



Still, however, the reader will perceive, that I 

 have formed a kind of system in the history of 

 every part of animated nature, directing myself 

 by the great obvious distinctions that she herself 

 seems to have made, which, though too few to 

 point exactly to the name, are yet sufficient to 

 illuminate the subject, and remove the reader's 

 perplexity. M. Buffon, indeed, who has brought 

 greater talents to this part of learning than any 

 other man, has almost entirely rejected method 

 in classing quadrupeds. This, with great defe- 

 rence to such a character, appears to me running 

 into the opposite extreme ; and, as some moderns 

 have of late spent much time, great pains, and 

 some learning, all to very little purpose, in sys- 



