PREFACE. vii 



cultivating natural history. They have been content to give, not only 

 the orevity, but also the dry and disgusting air of a dictionary to theii 

 systems. Ray, Klin, 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 atten- 

 tion 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 very different kind, and written with very different aims. It will ful- 

 ly 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 description, by generalizing 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 herself seems to 

 have made ; wliich, 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 rejected 

 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 almost 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 ar- 

 rangement, from which the dullest are the most usually free. 



In other respects, as far as this able philosopher has gone, I have 

 taken him for my guide. The warmth of his 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 al- 

 tered, as I thought proper. It was my intention, at one time, when- 

 ever 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 every way 

 his debtor, concealed my dissent, where my opinion was different , 

 but wherever I borrow 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 but to the smallest part of the WOIK, as 



