IV PREFACE. 



the circumstance of many popular errors having been detected, 

 many discussions settled, many new species and important 

 facts discovered, and some valuable leading principles of 

 classification developed since his time,, renders the works to 

 which I am now alluding, and which are the only ones of 

 the kind generally accessible, most imperfect instructors in 

 the present much-advanced state of zoological science. 



Having devoted myself, for some years, to this delightful 

 and most useful branch of natural history, I have here 

 attempted to furnish those who also feel interested in the 

 subject, but who may not happen to possess the same facili- 

 ties as myself, with a work containing the result of no little 

 research and observation, instituted without prejudice, or 

 pre-conceived theory; and which result is conveyed to the 

 reader in a style as homely and frank as " a round unvar- 

 nish'd tale :" void of all eloquence, unless it be such as 

 Nature herself imparts to the discourse. My wish has been, 

 that the perusal of this book should prove, if possible, as 

 agreeable and lively a recreation as a walk through the 

 Zoological Gardens ; that the solemn and melancholy strain 

 which is generally affected in works of this kind, should 

 give way to a tone more congenial with that warm and 

 lively emotion with which the actions and the frolics of 

 animals are contemplated by the visitors to those instruc- 

 tive and diverting exhibitions. Coleridge, in his reproof 

 of poets who assume a doleful strain in their descriptions of 

 the nightingale, assures them that " in nature there is nothing 

 melancholy," but the human mind ; and another poet asks, 

 " Who can refrain to smile with Nature?" 



Still I have not been regardless of the just observation of 

 Palcy, who says, " If one train of thinking be more desirable 

 than another, it is that which regards the phenomena of 

 nature, with a constant reference to a supreme intelligent 

 Creator." The earnestness with which the admirable adapt- 

 ation of the structure of animals to their necessities and situ- 



