Vi PREFACE. 



The work, as it atprerent stands, may I think, without Im« 

 propriety, be denominated an Anwial Biography/ * : To this 

 end, I have omitted nearly every thing that did not serve to 

 illustrate the charaters of the animals ; and the reader will 

 ftlso observe, that to render the anecdotes of their manners 

 as interesting and as little interrupted as possible, by matter 

 not immediately relative to the subject, I have in general 

 confined even the descriptive parts of dimensions, colour, 

 shape, &c. to the fijft ten or twelve lines of the account* 

 I have also left entirel}'- unnoticed all such animals as afford* 

 ed nothing but this kind of description ; for a sufficient aci» 

 count of these is to be found in almost every authentic book 

 of Natural History extant ; but particularly in Dr. Shaw'p 

 elegant and valuable work on General Zoology. I am well 

 aware, that the reader may recognize nlany of the anecdotes. 

 It is impossible entirely to prevent this ; but, in order to 

 avoid it as much as possible, I have omitted nearly all those 

 that were the most trite and well known. 



In composing these volumes, I have all the way attended 

 to every thing that might be of use in juvenile instruction. 

 Youth are caught by anecdote ; and from this peep into na- 

 ture, many may be induced to look further than they at first 



The Montlily Reviewers in their very handsome critique on 

 the former edition of this work, express their opinion that the title is 

 exceptionable. " Animal Biography (they say) is " equivalent to an 

 account of the lives of living creatures," and is therefore redundant. 

 This sirictly speaking, is the case; but since Biography is a term 

 that, ])y long usage, has become exclusively appropriated to the lives 

 of individuals among mankind, the term Animal Biography may 

 surely, and without impropriety, he considered to express traits of 

 tlie lives and habits of individual species of the lower orders of ani- 

 mated creation, oft disfinct from those of men. This is the precise 

 signification in wliich it is here used. — Another critic has altogether 

 objected to the term Bioorap/ii/, as having never hitlierto been ap. 

 plied to animals. But, doubtless, die compound of jSjo? and ypa^fCJ 

 is as applicable iv liie lives of auin\als, as to those of men. 



