Xli PREFACE. 



mals useful to man in proportion to their size, would 

 the worm-like leech ever have been resorted to as a 

 blood-letter, or the insect coccus employed as a dye ? 

 On no occasion can the argumentum ad verecun- 

 dmm be employed with more effect, than when ad- 

 dressed to the despisers of the humbler tribes of 

 animated beings. By whose power were the mean- 

 est creatures formed ? By whose wisdom were all 

 their organs arranged to fit them for the place they 

 occupy ? By whose will do they live ? By whose 

 bounty is their life sustained? Know, that HE, 

 who, in the beginning, created the Heaven and the 

 Earth, said, " Let the earth bring forth the living 

 " creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, 

 " and beast of the earth after his kind : and it was 

 " so." Is it, then, to be considered as a degrading 

 employment for man to examine those creatures 

 which were formed by GOD ? 



In collecting the materials of the present work, 

 and preparing it for publication, the author expe- 

 rienced unavoidable difficulties, arising from "his re- 

 mote situation. It was sometimes not in his power, 

 from his time being occupied by other important 

 duties, to consult rare and costly works on Na- 

 tural History ; and the slow progress of his task, 



