PREFACE. 



JN ATURAL History, considered in its utmost extent, comprehends two objects. First, that 

 of discovering, ascertaining, and naming, all the various productions of Nature. Secondly, 

 that of describing the properties, manners, and relations, which they bear to us, and to each 

 other. The first, which is the most difficult part of this science, is systematical, dry, mechan- 

 ical and incomplete. The second is more amusing, exhibits new pictures to the imagination, 

 and improves our relish for existence, by widening the prospect of nature around us. 



Both, however, are necessary to those who would understand this pleasing science in its 

 utmost extent. The first care of every inquirer, no doubt, should be, to see, to visit, and ex- 

 amine, every object, before he pretends to inspect its habitudes or its history. From seeing 

 and observing the thing itself, he is most naturally led to speculate upon its uses, its delights, 

 or its inconveniences. 



Numberless obstructions, however, are found in this part of his pursuit, that frustrate his 

 diligence and retard his curiosity. The objects in nature are so many, and even those of 

 the same kind are exhibited in such a variety of forms, that the inquirer finds himself lost in 

 the exuberance before him, and, like a man who attempts to count the stars, unassisted by 

 art, his powers are all distracted in barren superfluity. 



To remedy this embarrassment, artificial systems have been devised, which grouping into 

 masses those parts of nature more nearly resembling each other, refer the inquirer for the name 

 of the single object he desires to know, to some one of those general distributions, where it is 

 to be found by further examination. 



If, for instance, a man should in his walks meet with an animal, the name, and consequently 

 the history, of which he desires to know, he is taught by systematic writers of natural history 

 to examine its most obvious qualities, whether a quadruped, a bird, a fish, or an insect. Hav- 

 ing determined it, for explanation sake, to be an insect, he examines whether it has wings; if 

 he finds it possessed of these, he is taught to examine whether it has two or four; if possessed 

 of four, he is taught to observe whether the two upper wings are of a shelly hardness, and 

 serve as cases to those under them; if he finds the wings composed in this manner, he is then 

 taught to pronounce that this insect is one of the beetle kind: of the beetle kind, there are 

 three different classes distinguished from each other by their feelers ; he examines the insect 

 before him, and finds that the feelers are clavated or knobbed at the ends ; of beetles, with 

 feelers thus formed, there are ten kinds ; and among those he is taught to look for the precise 

 name of that which is before him. If, for instance, the knob be divided at the ends, and the 



