PREFACE. v 



The later moderns, with that good sense which they have carried into every other part of 

 science, have taken a different method in cultivating natural history. They have been con- 

 tent to give, not only the brevity, but also the dry and disgusting air of a dictionary, to their 

 systems. Ray, Klein, Brisson, and Linnaeus, have had only one aim, that of pointing out the 

 object in nature, of discovering its name, and where it was to be found in those authors that 

 treated of it in a more prolix and satisfactory manner. Thus natural history, at present, is 

 carried on in two distinct and separate channels ; the one serving to lead us to the thing, the 

 other conveying the history of the thing, as supposing it already known. 



The following Natural History is written with only such an attention to system as serves to 

 remove the reader's embarrassments, and allure him to proceed. It can make no pretensions 

 in directing him to the name of every object he meets with ; that belongs to works of a dif- 

 ferent kind, and written with very different aims. It will fully answer my design, if the reader, 

 being already possessed 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 descriptions by general- 

 izing them, and never to follow 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 embarrassment. 



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 her- 

 self 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. Mr. Buffon, indeed, who has 

 brought greater talents to this part of learning than any other man, has almost entirely reject- 

 ed method in classing quadrupeds. This, with great deference 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 systematic arrangement, he seems 

 so much disgusted by their trifling, but ostentatious efforts, that he describes his animals, al- 

 most in the order they happen to come before him. This want of method seems to be a fault; 

 but he can lose little by a criticism which every dull man can make, or by an error in arrange- 

 ment, from which the dullest are most usually free. 



In other respects, as far as this able philosopher has gone, I have taken him for my guide. 

 The warmth of hi i style, and the brilliancy of his imagination, are inimitable. Leaving him, 

 therefore, without a rival in these, and only availing myself of his information, I have been 

 content to describe things in my own way; and though many of the materials are taken from 

 him. yet I have added, retrenched, and altered, as 1 thought proper. It was my intention at 

 one time, whenever I differed from him, to have mentioned it at the bottom of the page ; but 

 this occurred so often, that I soon found it would look like envy, and might perhaps convict 

 me of those very errors which I was wanting to lay upon him. I have, therefore, as being eve- 

 ry way his debtor, concealed my dissent, where my opinion was different ; but wherever I bor- 

 row from him, I take care at the bottom of the page to express my obligations. But though my 

 obligations to this writer are many, they extend to but the smallest part of the work, as he has 

 hitherto completed only the history of quadrupeds. I was, therefore, left to my own reading 

 alone, to make out the history of birds, fishes, and insects, of which the arrangement was so diffi- 



NO. l. B 



