Vm PREFACE. 



are absolutely indispensable to science; hut they 

 must not he confounded with science itself. Valuable 

 as these details are, they form only the stepping- 

 stone by which we arrive at the knowledge of 

 animals ; or rather they are the cumbrous machinery 

 by which that knowledge is preserved and com- 

 municated to the world. The knowledge of the 

 name, position, and size of every rope in a ship is 

 absolutely necessary to a seaman, for without it 

 there could be no precision in command, no co- 

 operation in obedience ; — but surely it is not seaman- 

 ship ; and he who should suppose himself a skilful 

 navigator, with only such knowledge, though acquired 

 with the most minute pains, by actual study of a ship 

 lying in port, would find himself egregiously mistaken, 

 when he came to battle with sky and sea, tempests 

 and billows and currents, quicksands, and bristling- 

 rocks, and the breakers of a lee shore. 



Let closet-science take its true place as the hand- 

 maid of Natural History ; arranging and appropriating 

 the observations of the true naturalist, and enabling 

 him to record them with precision. The former may 

 be compared to the shelves, drawers, and pigeon-holes 

 of a cabinet, carefully arranged, affording a place for 

 every thing ; the latter to a room-full of valuable 

 objects and curiosities, thrown promiscuously in a heap. 

 The objects themselves are almost unavailable until 

 they be arranged in the shelves and drawers appro- 



