vi PREFACE. 



to attempt any estimate of the scientific work of 

 the great naturalists who are still among us. 



It is hardly necessary to add that the present 

 work lays no claim to exhaustiveness. Anything of 

 the nature of a detailed history of the rise and 

 progress of Zoological Science would necessarily 

 appeal to experts only. That which has been 

 attempted here, is to give an untechnical, but not 

 unscientific, account of the principal steps which 

 have marked the development of Natural History 

 in our own country. The object of this volume, 

 as of the Series, is to convey through the bio- 

 graphies of the principal workers, an intelligent 

 conception of the progress and leading principles 

 of the science treated of, so that the unprofessional 

 reader may be placed in a position of knowledge 

 to appreciate some of the great questions which 

 at present occupy the scientific world. 



