ii INTRODUCTION. 



gale to sweep, gleaming the lightning here, and volleying the thunder there, and 

 producing, by the variety of their awn action and thakof the surfaces and substances on 

 which they act, all those phenomena of the weather uiid what the weather brings, about 

 which we speak so much and know so little. Air and sea too, in their own properties are 

 volumes teeming with instruction, if we could read them ; and we soon could if we would. 

 Of the solid matters which compose the earth, of its plants and its animals, whether on the 

 land or in the sea, it is unnecessary to speak, because man has no wealth but from them, and 

 no means of acquiring it but by the knowledge of their properties. It is indeed the very 

 extent of nature which deters us from the study of it ; and when w^ do attempt that study, 

 after knowing by report how extended it is, we do not find the same assistance as in those 

 secondary applications of it which are more immediately accordant with our daily pursuits, 

 or more immediately within the grasp of common minds. 



This is not to be wondered at : Nature being the source of all the sciences., and the most 

 successful observers having extended only a little way in their knowledge of it, it is utterly 

 impossible that any man can come so prepared as to understand it all, or even live so long as 

 to acquire a thorough knowledge of any one division. But still there are many labourers 

 in the field, their numbers are increasing every day, and it is one in which all may labour 

 without slackening their hand in any other pursuit ; though it is not one the whole of the 

 acquired knowledge of which can be generalised into a single science. 



The principles, and the practical observation or knowledge of facts, must be taken 

 apart from each other; the former constituting what may be generally termed THK 

 PHYSICAL SCIENCES, which more immediately connect the observed facts with, and render 

 them useful in, the arts; and the latter constituting the science of NATURAL HISTORY, 

 or the appearances of nature in all its departments, as they present themselves to the 

 senses. 



But Natural History must not be confounded with history, in the common application 

 of the term, as recording the succession of actions in time merely ; for it includes, also, the 

 knowledge of all natural subjects as they exist in space, and not only in their single 

 characters, but in their relations to each other, to the proximate subjects among which they 

 are found, and to nature generally in its co-existence, and in as far as is possible in its 

 succession. 



These considerations will readily be admitted, when it is borne in mind that nature 

 furnishes us with powers and instruments, as well as with materials ; and that, though it is 

 chiefly as materials that we ultimately apply nature to use, the abundance and quality 

 of these depend upon the efficiency with which we can make the powers of nature work for 

 us ; and that of course depends upon our knowledge of those powers. The truth of this 

 stands in need of no argument or illustration ; we have only to direct our attention to the 

 garden, the field, the meadow, and the forest, and consider where would be our food and our 

 clothing, and even the possibility of our existence, if the natural powers which are daily and 

 hourly at work for us there were to cease for one season or one month. 



PLAN OF THE WORK. 



Regarding Natural History as we have attempted to define it, without even implying 

 disparagement to any of the existing publications, it may be said, that a work which shall 

 place the whole subject before ordinary readers, in an accessible, easy, and ample manner, 

 brought down to the present advanced state of science in all its departments, and yet freed 

 from the technicalities of science, which are perplexing to ordinary readers, is still a 

 desideratum. To supply that desideratum is the purpose of the present work ; and that 

 purpose is sought to be accomplished, by avoiding the granderror into which the projectors 



