INTRODUCTION. Xvii 
racy has been deeply impressed throughout the whole 
undertaking on the minds of those who have been 
engaged in its completion. In this, it is trusted, they 
have fully succeeded. To explain the share which each 
has taken in the work, and to record a debt of gratitude 
to those kind friends who have assisted in it, is the 
pleasing duty which it now remains to fulfil. 
The whole of the drawings are from the pencil of 
Mr. Wituiam Harvey, who, in seizing faithful and 
characteristic portraits of animals in restless and almost 
incessant motion, has succeeded in overcoming difficul- 
ties which can only be appreciated by those who have 
attempted similar delineations. In the portraits he has 
strictly confined himself to the chastity of truth; but in 
the vignettes, which have always some reference to the 
subject of the article which they conclude, he has occa- 
sionally held himself at liberty to give full scope to his 
imagination. 
The engravings have been executed throughout by 
Messrs. BRANSTON and Wricut. Determined on 
securing the accuracy of the representations, they have 
in every instance compared the proofs with the animals, 
and have made corrections where necessary until the 
resemblance has been rendered perfect. In one case 
alone has a deviation from the original been indulged 
in: the tail of the ocelot has been figured of the length 
usual in the species, instead of the truncated state in 
which it exists in the specimen; the markings of the 
animal are, however, as noticed in its article, accurately ° 
represented. 
The literary department has been superintended by 
K. T. Bennett, Esq. F.L.S., an active member of the 
Zoological Society, who has arranged for the press the 
