Hi PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE 



mal world. Some of the animals of New Hol- 

 land might have propagated in our woods and 

 plains, and constituted an wholesome and agree- 

 able variety in diet. Animals have been dis- 

 covered in South America, whose fur was well 

 adapted to form new and valuable articles of 

 commerce. 



But it is to the philosopher that the animal 

 world opens the grandest scene of contempla- 

 tion, and the most fertile subjects of profound 

 meditation. The habits of animals, the pecu- 

 liar processes of their instincts, merit the closest 

 attention, and require no small degree of saga- 

 city to be properly developed. The bee, for 

 example, so long the admiration of naturalists, 

 of poets, of philosophers, and men of edu- 

 cation of every kind, was still not com- 

 pletely known, until M. Huber, with a keen- 

 ness of intellectual vision, which has well 

 compensated his corporeal privation, revealed 

 to us all the secrets of the government of the 

 hive, and the whole system of political economy 

 observed in that celebrated republic. 



There are few properties more remarkable, 

 than that discovered by Spallanzani in the bats, 

 the power of directing their course in obscurity, 

 of threading all the windings of their subterra- 

 neous habitations, and evading every obstacle, 



