6 INTRODUCTION. 



of Natural History has been too much circumscribed within 

 the mere formulas- of Scientific utility to meet the mental 

 requisitions of the period in its text, or the practical demand 

 for cheapness in its illustration, which the rapid progress 

 of discovery in this department clearly demands ! I have, 

 therefore, in bringing this enterprise to a head, consistently 

 acted with |an early conceived purpose, that so far as the 

 devotion of individual energies could go, the General Mind 

 should no longer be thus rudely shut off from the contempla- 

 tion of themes which, in their free and legitimate presenta- 

 tion, are the most healthful, refreshing and ennobling ! I 

 speak this in no arrogance, for of such I have no sense but 

 of a collected purpose. 



I have remarked that this first Volume is put forward as 

 merely an introductory to the Series. My object has been 

 to present my Reader at once to the Hunter-Naturalist in 

 that broad and comprehensive meaning of the character which 

 it implies to me. The Narrative and Sketchy form into which 

 I have moulded this Volume, is to continue a distinctive feature 

 of the Series. The wild creature and its Human peer must go 

 together in our treatment the one re-acts upon and modifies 

 the other ; let us exhibit the passions and the life of both. 

 Therefore, in each successive volume, whether it be the Wild 

 Indian and his Buffalo the Trapper and his Beaver the 

 buck-skinned Nomad of Art and Science, with Specimen-box 

 and precious Port-folio of Drawings or the amateur Adven- 

 turer with his insatiable appetite for novelty however foreign, 

 strange, or distant such may be, they shall appear amidst their 

 separate accessories of the Animal World. 



Each Volume shall contain at least five such Plates as those 

 we give in this, devoted to the illustration of the Wild Scenes 

 of our own Indian Border Life, which will be furnished from 

 the noble and unequalled pencil of Alfred J. Miller, of Bal- 

 timore, who accompanied Sir William Drummond Stuart, on 

 his noted expedition among the Indian Tribes of the Plains, 

 as Artist. How splendidly he has accomplished his mission 



