I 



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PREFACE. 



J.N preparing this work for the public, the writer 

 was chiefly influenced by a desire to collect the 

 truths of Zoology within a small compass, and to 

 render them more intelligible, by a systematical 

 arrangement. He is not aware that there exists 

 any work in the English language, in which 

 the subject, in its different bearings, has been il- 

 lustrated in a philosophical manner, or to which a 

 student of Zoology could be referred, as a suitable 

 introduction to the science. There are not wanting, 

 it is true, many disquisitions of great value, on par- 

 ticular departments of the physiology and classifica- 

 tion of Animals ; for who can enumerate the names 

 of TYSON, LISTER, WILLOUGHBY, RAY, ELLIS, 

 HUNTER, PENNANT, MONRO, and MONTAGU, 

 among the dead, and HOME, KIRBY, and LEACH, 

 among the living zoologists of Britain, without 



