4 PREFATORY REMARKS. 



subject, I have at last yielded to the soli- 

 citation of my scientific friends, and fearless 

 of the result I send it forth to the world. 



Although my library was small, and, as 

 far as natural history was concerned, limited 

 in the extreme, yet the broad fields of 

 nature so abundantly supplied this defect 

 as to surround me with materials so various 

 in kind, and so vast in quantity as com- 

 pletely to overwhelm me. Under these 

 feelings I kept on the outskirts of them, 

 delighted to pick up, and carefully to ex- 

 amine such things as I could comprehend. 

 While so employed, the eel-beetle came in 

 my way, which, I could perceive stood 

 unparalleled in its natures among all the 

 other amphibious animals that had crossed 

 my path. In each of the others I could 

 see the two natures mixed, but in the eel- 

 beetle its two natures were nearly separate 

 and distinct; the fish nature being only 



