jr 



PREFACE- 



IT is scarcely necessary to remind the Public 

 that we possess no complete and compendious 

 work on zoology in our language commensurate, 

 at least, with the modern improvements and dis- 

 coveries in that science. And that while the 

 naturalists of the continent have been zealously 

 and rapidly enlarging the extent, and deter- 

 mining the limits of the various departments of 

 the animal kingdom, we have evinced but little 

 solicitude to participate in their labours or to 

 emulate their acquirements. 



The attempt to supply a work of this descrip- 

 tion, and to excite, if possible, a little more at- 

 tention to this very interesting subject, cannot, 

 it is presumed, require apology. With this 

 view it was originally intended that the present 

 book should have been presented to the Public 

 in an original form ; but upon consideration that 

 the system almost altogether, as well as much of 

 the materials would be derived from the illus- 

 trious naturalist to whom the science of orga- 

 nized nature is so deeply indebted, it was 



Vol. I. b 



