x I'll Kl'ACK. 



on going for the firsl time into the country, and seeing the milking of the cow, the 

 plow in-- of the field, the Bcampering of the lambs, the gambols of the calf, the swim- 

 ming of tlu 1 ducks and geese, immediately recognize thrm as things they had seen in 

 the humble bul .-till Bpeaking wood-cuts in their primers. I have frequently seen 

 children, on going into a menagerie, name the principal beasts, though they had never 

 seen one of them before; bul they had become acquainted with them from the wood- 

 cuts in their story-books. Every person musl be familiar with similar evidences, 

 derived from his own experience, of the effect of these unpretending illustrations. 



Wood engraving, for several reasons, is, indeed, especially adapted to popular -works 

 on Natural History. One is the greater economy, so that we arc able in this work 

 to give more than fourteen hundred portraits of animals. Another is, that from its 

 nature it is very effective in the representation of feathers and hair, the integuments 

 of bird.- and quadrupeds : it is hardly less adapted to the representation of the scales 

 of fishes and the shells of mollusca. A still more important reason is, that these en- 

 gravings are now universally made from drawings on the wood, and the engraver 

 merely cuts out the lights, leaving the shades just as the designer drew them. There- 

 fore, a wood engraving is sifac simile of the original design, and hence it is that these 

 generally possess a spirit, life, and verisimilitude, even beyond many copper or litho- 

 graphic engravings. The "English Cyclopedia of Natural History"' asserts that the 

 wood engravings in Bell's and Van-ell's Beasts and Birds of Great Britain — and which, 

 by the way. we have extensively copied in the following pages — are manifestly supe- 

 rior, for the conveyance of accurate impressions of the aspects of animals, to some of 

 the colored engravings in the more imposing books of science. The majestic air of 

 the lion, the sly visage of the fox, the vivacity of the squirrel, the pertness of the 

 wren, the crawling gait of the spider, and indeed all the characteristics of external 

 appearance in animals, except color — all those indeed which mere words cannot 

 convey — are generally more successfully represented in fine wood engravings than in 

 any other. 



And finally, what is more important than all in a work like this, for the house and 

 the home, and for daily use, these engravings — being in immediate contact with the 

 descriptive texl are consulted without the trouble of referring to an index and turning 

 over leaves, and are therefore more convenienl and useful, as illustrations, than the ma- 

 jority of steel and copper engravings, which are, of necessity, separated from the text. 



It is hoped, therefore, thai the numerous and <-le\ er engravings of this work — more 

 ample than have ever appeared in any similar publication, and inserted, not as mere 

 embellishments, but for the mosl part as descriptions of animals— may render it 

 acceptable, even if in any other respects it may seem defective. 



It may be uecessaiy to stale the extent to which this work carries the notice of 

 particular Bpecies of animal.-. A.s there are a quarter of a million of species in the 

 Animal Kingdom, a very narrow selection for particular description must of course be 



