REMARKS. MY 
the spirit, and, as far as practicable, to the very letter of my 
author, have endeavoured to give to the whole work that 
classical ‘¢form and pressure” which facilitates its study and 
tends to fix its great and leading points more firmly in the 
memory. How far I have succeeded others must determine. 
I have not forgotten that although this work is more parti- 
cularly intended to be studied by the naturalist, it will proba- 
bly be read by every one who has the slightest desire to ac- 
quire some knowledge of the numerous and interesting groups 
of animals by which Man is surrounded, and with which he 
is so indissolubly connected. ‘The general reader will lose 
nothing by the concise and simple style I have endeavoured to 
adopt ; and although the meanings of the names aflixed to the 
various divisions are not placed in glaring characters at their 
head, he will always find it in the text. 
Whenever an animal is mentioned that is generally known 
by one and the same English, or vulgar name, I have always 
givenit; but of the many thousands here treated of, very few 
are thus circumstanced, and I cannot but think that it would 
be advantageous to the science if vulgar names were totally 
excluded from its nomenclature. The evidence of this is to 
be found in the fact, that, with comparatively few exceptions, 
these names vary, not only in different countries, but in dif- 
ferent parts of the same country. ‘Thus the Rockfish of Phila- 
delphia is a Striped-Bass at Boston; the Sheephead of Pitts- 
burg (a Corvina) is a totally different fish from the one so called 
in our city (a Sargus), and even belongs to a different family; 
the Trout we receive from Long Branch might with equal 
propriety be denominated a Shark ora Sturgeon. Different 
names are sometimes attached to the same animal, and the 
same name to different animals. Vulgar names are a fruitful 
source of error; and therefore I have employed them as spa- 
ringly and as cautiously as possible. 
An immaculate book is perhaps rather to be wished for than 
expected, and that errors should have crept into the Regne 
Animal is not at all surprizing. These I have endeavoured 
to correct, not by erasure or altering the text (those cases al- 
