PREFACE. Vll 



literally covers the system of things with its own brilliancy, so 

 that the remote and the small are as accessible and open to 

 scrutiny as objects of daily familiarity. This Cuvier has done, 

 in an eminent degree, with respect to the animal kingdom ; and 

 hence, though his work is really the most profound, it is the 

 clearest and the most easy to be understood the book, in short, 

 whereby all mankind may the most speedily and the most 

 accurately obtain a knowledge of this kingdom of nature. 



The object of this edition is to bring Cuvier's work within 

 the reach of every class of readers, not by a mutilated abridg- 

 ment (for the systematic part of the work is so condensed in 

 the original that it cannot be abridged without mutilation), but 

 in substance, as it came from the hand of its great author. In 

 order to accomplish this object, to be able to furnish the requisite 

 number of illustrative engravings, and at the same time to 

 make the work procurable at a very moderate price, a few, 

 and a very few of the more minute details have been omitted. 

 But the book is thereby improved rather than injured ; for the 

 author throws much of the details of species into notes, as if the 

 introduction of them into the text would cloud and obscure his 

 main object, that of giving a connected and luminous view of 

 animated nature. This view it has been the constant study of 

 the editor to present unbroken, so that those who may make 

 use of this volume may have the feeling that they are studying 

 Cuvier only, and not Cuvier with the alloying interpolations of 

 a less informed and feebler mind. 



The translation may be relied upon as faithful ; for, indepen- 

 dent of the care bestowed upon it by Dr. M ; MURTRIE, the Ame- 



