INTRODUCTION. 
WueEn the interest attached to the higher orders of 
the brute creation is brought in review for the pur- 
pose of bestowing pre-eminence on one particular 
species, Europeans, with few dissentients, will con- 
sider them in relation to their utility for economic 
purposes. They will see in them objects of aliment 
and clothing; the producers of the raw materials 
for manufactures; they will think of navigation, 
exports, and imports, and then conclude that sheep 
and oxen are the most important animals to man. 
It is, however, probable that a Western Asiatic, from 
similar motives, would fix upon camels and drome- 
daries ; a Nabob would point to his state elephant, 
and a Tartar, an Arab, a soldier, and a jockey, would 
unanimously claim the post of honour for the horse. 
No argument in favour of the Peruvian lama would 
be admitted; and the poor alone might perhaps 
muse upon the patient and hardy virtues of the ass. 
None but the savage and the mere sportsman would 
first think of the importance of the canine species. 
