PREFACE. 



DURING the time in which the first volume of this work, published 

 in 1851, was passing through the press, its estimable author was in a 

 very delicate state of health. So reduced, indeed, was he by a lingering 

 illness, that he felt himself unequal to the task of compiling an Analytical 

 Index, according to the plan which he had followed in the two volumes 

 on " RARE AND REMARKABLE ANIMALS or SCOTLAND ;" and a few weeks 

 after the publication of the volume, his disease terminated fatally. 



Sir JOHN DALYELL had contemplated proceeding immediately with 

 the preparation of the second volume, if his life had been spared, and, 

 towards the accomplishment of his object, he had, to some extent, ar- 

 ranged his notes of descriptions of species, intending to correct and 

 transcribe the whole for the press. Several Plates had likewise been 

 executed, and many drawings were in some measure assorted as materials 

 ready to be placed in the hands of the engraver. 



In this state of things, it was considered by his Sister, who always 

 lived with him, as a duty, to make an effort and save for the public benefit 

 a large amount of valuable information, the result of the continuous la- 

 bour, through many years, of an acute, patient, and intelligent observer. 

 This zeal to promote the author's fame, and advance at the same time the 

 interest of science, was naturally to be looked for from the individual re- 

 ferred to in the 2d volume of " Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland," 

 p. 99, where, in reference to the Cristatella, he says, " I am indebted to 



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