vi PREFACE. 
regarding them as extensive benefactors of the 
science. But the writings of these naturalists, 
and others which have been noticed in the body 
of the work, are not only rare, but expensive; 
so that the task of investigating the facts which 
have been established, or the theories which have 
been proposed, can scarcely, in ordinary circum- 
stances, be entered upon. The want, indeed, of 
such an introduction to the study of the Animal 
Kingdom, as should serve as an index to the doc- 
trines on which the classification is founded, has 
frequently been the subject of regret, and may pro- 
bably be considered as the origin of that indifference 
to the science which is but too apparent in this coun- 
try. Botany and Mineralogy have been illustrated 
by a variety of introductory works, full of enlarged 
and philosophical views, and professorships have 
been instituted to accelerate the progress of these 
sciences : but Zoology has experienced no such fos- 
tering care. It has been abandoned to its fate, and 
suffered to languish under the pernicious influence 
of peculiar external circumstances, 
Among those circumstances which have directly 
retarded the progress of Zoology in Britain, there 
is one which has been conspicuously hurtful,—the 
