PREFACE. 



IN BRINGING OUT the present work, the Author has been 

 mainly guided by the recollection of his own difficulties 

 as a student, and by the belief that he is supplying a 

 distinct want. Many excellent and original works on 

 Natural History are extant, but they mostly labour under 

 disadvantages which more or less disqualify them as text- 

 books for students. So vast, for instance, have been the 

 additions to our Zoological knowledge within the last few 

 years, that no work on Natural History, except the most 

 recent ones, represents adequately the present state of the 

 Science. Under this inevitable disqualification all the 

 older Manuals labour. Other works, again, of the most 

 profound research, are unsuitable for ordinary students 

 from their bulk, cost, and, more than all, from their very 

 profundity. 



The Author's aim, therefore, has simply been, to pre- 

 sent to the ordinary student those leading facts in Natural 

 History, the knowledge of which is essential, but which 

 lie scattered through the pages of other larger and more 

 costly works, inaccessible to those who merely desire to 

 learn the outlines of the Science. In carrying out this 

 object, it is unnecessary for the Author to remark that he 

 does not lay any claim to originality. He trusts, how- 



