VI REMARKS. 



that lofty standard which is the necessary result of that train of 

 thought and inquiry which finally leads him from the creature to 

 the Creator, it will admit it to be " time gained" and with the 

 most usurious interest. The vast number and variety of facts 

 to be retained in this study, and the necessity of classing them 

 in the mind, begets a habit of mental activity, analysis, and 

 order, that is of incalculable value to the possessor in the com- 

 mon business of life, enabling him to disentangle and arrange 

 the most confused and chaotic matters with certainty and 

 despatch. 



In compressing the four large volumes of my edition of the 

 " Animal Kingdom" into its present form, I have endeavour- 

 ed to retain the whole of what I consider its great and leading 

 points, and as much of such of the details of the organization, 

 instincts and habits of the animals of which it treats, as could 

 with propriety be presented to the consideration of those 

 youthful minds for whose use it is intended. The whole has 

 been sedulously, and I hope so thoroughly expurgated, that 

 it may be placed in the hands of females, without the slightest 

 fear of their encountering a word or idea that could offend the 

 most fastidious delicacy, or sully that purity of imagination 

 and thought which forms one of the brightest ornaments of the 

 sex. 



H. M'MURTRIE. 



Pine Street, Philadelphia, 

 December 1831. 





