Vin PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION, 



belongs to works of a different kind, and written with very 

 different aims. It will fully answer my design, if the reader, 

 being already possessed of the name of any animal, shall find here 

 a short, though satisfactory, history of its habitudefs, its subsis- 

 tence, its manners, its friendships, and hostilities. My aim has 

 been to carry on just as much method as was sufficient to shorten 

 my descriptions by generalizing them, and never to follow order 

 where the art of writing, which is but another nfime for good 

 sense, informed me that it would only contribute to the reader's 

 embarrassment. 



Still, however, the reader will perceive that I have formed a 

 kind of system in the history of every part of animated nature, 

 directing myself by the great obvious distinctions that she herself 

 seems to have made ; which, though too few to point exactly to 

 the name, are yet sufficient to illuminate the subject, and remove 

 the reader's perplexity. INIr Buffon, indeed, who has brought 

 greater talents to this part of learning than any other man, has 

 almost entirely rejected method in classing quadrupeds. This, 

 with great deference to such a character, appears to me running 

 into the opposite extreme ; and as some moderns have of late spent 

 much time, great pains, and some learning, all to very little pur- 

 pose, in systematic arrangement, he seems so much disgusted by 

 their trifling but ostentatious efforts, that he describes the ani- 

 mals almost in the order they happen to come before him. This 

 want of method seems to be a fault ; but he can lose little by a 

 criticism which every dull man can make, or by an error in ar- 

 rangement, from which the dullest are most usually free. 



In other respects, as far as this able philosopher has gone, 1 

 have taken him for my guide. The warmth of his style, and the 

 brilliancy of his imagination, are inimitable. I^eaving him, there- 

 fore, without a rival in these, and only availing myself of his in- 

 formation, I have been content to describe things in my own w;iy; 

 and though many of the materials are taken from him, j'et I 

 have added, retrenched, and altered, as I thought proper. It was 

 my intention at one time, whenever 1 differed from him, to have 

 mentioned it at the bottom of the page ; but this occurred so of 

 ten, that I soon found it would look like envy, and might perhaps 

 convict me of those very errors which I was wanting to lay upon 

 him. 1 have, therefore, as being every way his debtor, concealed 

 my dissent, where my opinion was different ; but wherever I 

 borrow from him, 1 take care at the bottom of the page to ex- 

 press my obligations. 13ut though my obligiitions to this writer 

 are many, tbey extend to but the smallest part of the work, as he 



