PREFACE 



TV/TR. RICHARD LYDEKKER, who came of a well-known family of 

 Dutch descent that settled in Bedfordshire more than a century 

 ago, died on the 15th of April 1915, aged 66, while this work was in 

 the press. It had been long in preparation, and the sheets had received 

 his final revision, so that it remains as he left it, with the exception of 

 this preface. 



It is a general natural history in which the animals are described 

 according to their geographical distribution, and the treatment of the 

 subject on these lines was not new to him ; in fact, his Geographical 

 History of Mammals, published in 1896, is held by many to be his most 

 original and important contribution to scientific literature. These volumes, 

 however, have a wider scope. They are on a more popular basis, and 

 deal with animal life of every kind, vertebrate and invertebrate, in all 

 aspects throughout the world ; and, of necessity, prominence is given to 

 those groups which are of most importance in denoting the changes in 

 the lands and seas during comparatively recent geological epochs. 



No writer was more competent to discuss these matters from all points 

 of view. His university studies in natural science, his experiences duriug 

 the eight years he was on the Geological Survey of India, his work in 

 South America, his many volumes of descriptive catalogues of the fossil 

 vertebrates in the Indian, British, and Dublin museums, and his con- 

 tributions to the proceedings of learned societies, made him eminent as 

 an authority on extinct animals of the higher orders. 



No man had better opportunities of familiarising himself with the 

 existing fauna of every region, owing to his work at the Natural History 

 Museum, where for twenty years he was arranging the collections of 

 mammals and reptiles. He spent his life among animals living and dead, 

 and gave the world the results of his studies in quite a long array of 



