

PREFACE 



TO 



FIRST EDITION OF PART I. 



IN bringing out the present work, the Author has been 

 mainly guided by the recollection of his own difficulties 

 as a student, and by the belief that he is supplying a 

 distinct want. Many excellent and original works on 

 Natural History are extant, but they mostly labour 

 under disadvantages which more or less disqualify 

 them as text-books for students. So vast, for instance, 

 have been the additions to our Zoological knowledge 

 within the last few years, that no work on Natural 

 History, except the most recent ones, represents ade- 

 quately the present state of the Science. Under this 

 inevitable disqualification all the older Manuals labour. 

 Other works again, of the most profound research, are 

 unsuitable for ordinary students from their bulk, cost, 

 and, more than all, from their very profundity. 



The Author's aim, therefore, has simply been to 

 present to the ordinary student those leading facts in 

 Natural History, the knowledge of which is essential, 

 but which lie scattered through the pages of other larger 

 and more costly works, inaccessible to those who merely 



I 



