vi REMARKS. 
ways excepted where the mistake was evidently and purely 
typographical), but by a note, either on the page itself, or in 
the appendix. Thus, whatever has been added, nothing has 
been taken away, and the text of my author remains as J 
found it. 
It was originally my intention to have made considerable 
additions of American species to the Entomology, but to such 
an extent has the formation of new genera and the division of 
old ones lately been carried, that it would have required 
more time to do this correctly than to translate the whole 
book, and consequently I was compelled to abandon it. Of 
the Fishes of this country nothing can be said, until we are in 
possession of the expected work of M. Lesueur. 
The period in which America was compelled to look to 
Europe for a knowledge of her own productions has termi- 
nated; and our Wilson, Say, Ord, Le Conte, Harlan, Hentz, 
Audubon, &c. &c. are repaying the debt with usury. Nor 
is this spirit of observation abating. The increasing number 
of institutions exclusively devoted to the natural sciences, in 
almost every section of our extensive country, shows the re- 
verse to be the fact, and authorizes us to expect the most 
splendid results from their united efforts. 
I cannot conclude without acknowledging my obligations to 
Major Le Conte for his valuable communications on various 
portions of the Regne Animal. The results of his critical and 
laborious investigations are chiefly to be found in the notes on 
American birds, and the Catalogue which closes this volume, 
and I have only to regret that the unfinished state of the work 
on the Lepidoptera of North America, which is now being 
published at Paris by him and M. Boisduval, prevented me 
from employing it. 
H. M’MURTRIE. 
Philadelphia, June 1831. 
