PRRFACE. V 



of this kind of knowledge, a person must often 

 betray his ignorance and expose himself to ridi- 

 cule. 



The greatest princes and philosophers have 

 not thought the study of natural history unwor- 

 thy their'attention. Solomon, as the scripture 

 informs us, " spake of trees, from the cedar tree 

 that is in Lebanon, even to the hyssop that 

 springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts 1 , 

 and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of 

 fishes." Aristotle also wrote largely on these 

 subjects: the most magnificent and powerful of 

 the kings of Israel, and the prince of the Grecian, 

 philosophers, made the knowledge of nature one 

 of the principal objects of their pursuit. 



The best mode of communicating useful in- 

 struction is to render it entertaining; and youth 

 seldom find any thing agreeable that appears in 

 the form of a task, Systematic arrangements* 

 however advantageous they may be to the pro- 

 fessed naturalist, tend more frequently to em- 

 barrass than to inform the juvenile student, or 

 the common reader. Various systems have been, 

 formed by naturalists, each of which has had its 

 adherents; while by others, it has been exploded 

 as too close or too restrictive, too simple or too 

 complex. The cause of this defect, and the dif- 

 ficulty of forming complete systematic arrange- 

 ments is, that nature has not attached so much 

 importance to these distinctions as they have 

 done, nor made them the uniform rules of her 

 a 3 



