PREFACE. 



NATURAL HISTORY, considered in its utmost extent, comprehends 

 two objects. First, that of discovering, ascertaining, and naming all 

 he 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, mechanical, 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 inquir- 

 er, no doubt, should be, to see, to visit, and examine every object, be- 

 fore 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 pur 

 suit, 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 the barren superfluity. 



To remedy this embarrassment, artificial systems have been devised, 

 which grouping into masses those parts of Nature more nearly resem- 

 bling 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 ob- 

 vious qualities, whether a quadruped, a bird, a fish, or an insect. Having 

 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, 

 distinguishee? 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 

 belly be streaked with white, it is no other than the Dor or the May- 

 bug ; an animal, the noxious qualities of which give it a very distin- 

 guished rank in the history of the insect creation. In this manner a 

 system of natural history .may, in some measure, be compared to a dic- 

 tionary of words. Both are solely intended to explain the names of things; 



