6 PREFACE. 



the enormous Whale. It is a subject, fraught with the 

 highest interest to all ; and one has but to enter the portala 

 of this science, to ensure Ins further progress among the 

 wonders and beauties, winch lie sees everywhere spread out 

 before him. 



But beyond the interest, with which this science is in- 

 vested, there are positive benefits resulting to him who 

 pursues it in a methodical manner — the only manner, in fact, 

 in winch it can be truly said to be, in the highest sense, either 

 instructive or profitable ; and these are the ideas and habits 

 of arrangement and classification, which it is so well calcu- 

 lated to afford. 



This is particularly the case with Zoology. Of a large 

 number of objects, widely dissimilar in almost all respects, 

 many divisions are made by selecting certain characteristics, 

 in which all in each division agree. Such, for instance, is the 

 department of Vertebrates, which includes Mammalia, Birds, 

 Reptiles, and Fishes, each of them having a spinal column. 

 These again are subdivided according to well-defined prin- 

 ciples of classification ; and thus each individual is system- 

 atically arranged in its proper place, depending upon its 

 structure or other peculiarities. 



Studies of such a nature are happily calculated to form 

 habits of order and method, essential features of a sound 

 education. 



The study or examination of a subject with the aid of 

 science is always invested with an interest, which is lost to 

 him who has not such a help and guide. Without attempt- 

 ing to analyze the reasoning by winch this fact is established, 

 it will not be denied, that he who brings to his investigations 

 in any department of knowledge, the results of past ex- 

 perience and observations, is furnished with enlarged powers 

 of improvement and increased capacities for enjoyment ; and 

 there are not wanting instances, as in the cases of Wilson and 

 Audubon, when in then pursuits in one department of Zoolo- 

 gical science, they have left the comforts of home and eivili- 



