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/»^HE NATURE LIBRARY is the 

 II. only group of books on natural 

 ^^ history that gives scientifically ac- 

 curate information in simple, narrative 

 style, and in a way that makes it equally 

 available for studious reference or casual 

 entertainment. 



It represents the first attempt made to 

 illustrate a work of such magnitude and im- 

 portance with direct photographic repro- 

 ductions of living subjects of the animal, 

 bird, fish, insect, and floral worlds in their 

 native conditions. Additional to this pho- 

 tographic literalness, the fidelity to nature 

 has been greatly heightened by color plates, 

 which are so perfectly treated that the ex- 

 act tint or tone of the living original is pre- 

 served through all the varieties of color. 

 Thus the identification of any bird, flower, 

 moth, etc., is easy, and its classification 

 becomes a matter of the utmost simplicity, 

 an advantage of inestimable value to the 

 student or general lovei of nature hitherto 

 perplexed and discouraged by old-fashioned 

 so-called "keys. 



This is the first time a systematic effort 

 has been made to bring the reader into an 

 intimate knowledge, free from fanciful in- 

 vention, of the home life of our brethren of 

 the lower world. The difficulties of pho- 

 tographing wild animals in their native en- 

 vironments, birds on their nests, and timid 

 cre?*^ures in their hidings, are sometimes 

 insuperable ; but the success that rewarded 

 the fatigues and hardships of the makers of 

 The Nature Library, and which is at- 

 tested throughout the pages of the ten beau- 

 tiful volumes, makes this set of books not 

 not only unrivaled, but absolutely unique 

 in the field. 



Besides the 450 half-tones from photo- 

 graphs taken especially for this work in all 

 regions of the coimtry, and the 300 extra- 

 ordinary and remarkably lifelike color 

 plates, there are about 1,500 text cuts, such 

 as are usually regarded as all- sufficient il- 

 lustrations of theses on natural history. 



In the actual value of the pictorial mat- 

 ter, the purchaser gets more than the price 

 of the ten volumes : and yet the informa- 

 tion, charmingly, familiarly presented in the 

 4,000 pages, is a treasury from which the 

 most careless reader may extract a sort of 

 riches he would not willingly lose again. 



But The Nature Library is not hav- 

 ing careless readers. One point more fre- 

 quently emphasized than any other by those 

 who write in voluntary acknowledgment of 

 their satisfaction with the purchase is the 

 *' entertaining " quality of the books. 



Entertaining they most unquestionably 

 are — entertaining to old and young alike ; 

 and that was the great object aimed at by 

 the makers of The Nature Library 

 who believe that the secret of all educa- 

 tion is to make instruction entertain- 

 ing and inspiring. We believe noth- 

 ing better suited to the double 

 purpose than these ten hand - 

 some and beautifully illus- 

 trated books has been of- / S^ ^'?'S'-J''-^ 

 fered to the t^"1^i,v in / ^> 

 many years. 



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