X PREFACE. 



the animated beings which they describe ; they are, 

 generally, not the results of brief and transient 

 observations of their subjects, but of a protracted 

 acquaintance with them, in which feature after 

 feature was delineated, and line after line was added, 

 from time to time. The Author has aimed to do 

 more than merely give a record of the habits and 

 instincts of animals ; he has essayed to describe (as 

 well as feeble words may attain to do it) somewhat 

 of the glory and loveliness of the scenes in which 

 they dwell ; and he has endeavoured to do this with 

 a kind of panoramic effect, so that the reader might 

 have before his mind a succession of pictures, as it 

 were, of a beauteous tropic island. 



In the arrangement of the Work the form of a 

 Journal has been maintained to such an extent as to 

 give a slight thread of continuity to the whole. It 

 is not, however, a Diary; chronological sequence 

 having been always made to yield to the superior 

 advantage of unity and completeness in the exhi- 

 bition of the various subjects. The Author has 

 grouped together all the information that he had 

 collected on each subject, though obtained at dif- 

 ferent times ; and thus the memoirs generally take 

 the form of monographs more or less complete. 



The following pages are enriched with many 

 papers from another pen. The Author considers it 

 one of the happiest reminiscences of a visit unusually 



