4 SPHEEE AKD FUNDAMENTAL 



1 0. Every well-educated person, however, is expected to 

 have a general acquaintance with the great natural phenomena 

 constantly displayed before his eyes. A general knowledge 

 of man and the subordinate animals, embracing their structure, 

 races, habits, distribution, mutual relations, c., is calculated 

 not only to conduce essentially to our happiness, but is a study 

 which it would be inexcusable to neglect. This general know- 

 ledge, which is given by the science of Zoology, it is the pur- 

 pose of the present work to afford. 



1 1 . A sketch of this nature should render prominent the 

 more general features of animal life, and delineate the arrange- 

 ment of the species according to their most natural relations 

 and their rank in the scale of being ; and thus give a pano- 

 rama, as it were, of the entire Animal Kingdom. To accom- 

 plish this, we are at once involved in the question, what is it 

 that gives an animal precedence in rank ? 



12. In one sense, all animals are equally perfect. Each 

 species has its definite sphere of action, whether more or less 

 extended, its own peculiar office in the economy of nature ; 

 and is perfectly adapted to fulfil all the purposes of its crea- 

 tion, beyond the possibility of improvement. In this sense, 

 every animal is perfect. But there is a wide difference among 

 them, in respect to their organization. In some it is very 

 simple, and very limited in its operation ; in others, extremely 

 complicated, and capable of exercising a great variety of func- 

 tions. 



13. In this physiological point of view, an animal may 

 be said to be more perfect in proportion as its relations with 

 the external world are more varied ; in other words, the more 

 numerous its functions are. Thus, a quadruped, or a bird, 

 which has the five senses fully developed, and which has, 

 moreover, the facidty of readily transporting itself from place 

 to place, is more perfect than a snail, whose senses are very 

 obtuse, and whose motion is very sluggish. 



14. In like manner, each of the organs, when separately 

 considered, is found to have every degree of complication, 

 and, consequently, every degree of nicety in the performance 

 of its function. Thus, the eye-spots of the star-fish and jelly- 

 fish are probably endowed with the faculty of perceiving 

 light, without the power of distinguishing objects. The keen 

 eye of the bird, on the contrary, discerns minute objects 



