TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. xv 



To study natural history then with entire success, the 

 student should listen to lectures, read and study in books, 

 visit museums and collections ; and, in order to join the 

 observation of material things with reading and lectures, 

 every school, if possible, should be furnished with a mu- 

 seum of instruction; that is, a collection containing the 

 types of all the genera, that the student may have the 

 opportunity of comparing natural objects with oral and 

 written descriptions of them. In this way only can one 

 become a thorough naturalist. Though this is not a desire 

 of every one, still all should possess sufficient knowledge 

 of the subject, to understand the principles upon which the 

 objects of nature are arranged, for the purpose of conve- 

 nient and advantageous study. 



If the reader of these observations will reflect upon 

 them, and decide for himself upon their general truth, he 

 will not think it expedient or profitable, to withhold books 

 from students of physical science not even from those 

 who have the opportunity of listening to the most accom- 

 plished lecturers ; nor will he, I think, be of opinion that 

 Natural History can be best taught, and to " beginners 

 especially," "without the use of any book, whatever, except 

 the book of nature and its visible illustrations." 



Teachers who are so disposed, will find in these pages 

 many opportunities to show those whom they instruct, 

 the beautiful adaptation of organization in every living 

 thing to the mode of life it is designed to observe, and the 

 kind of food upon which it was pre-ordered it should live. 

 To point out, or even allude to this universal adaptation 

 of every thing in nature, to the purposes for which it was 

 designed by the beneficent Creator, would have carried us 

 far beyond our limits, and interfered with the design of pre- 

 senting, in a very short space, as many facts as possible, 

 without obscuring the view of arrangement or classification 



in Natural History, a knowledge of which it is a leading 



B 



