vi PREFACE. 



possesses these qualities because its inmost nature is predaceous, and it needs these appliances to enable it 

 to carry out the innate principle of its being ; so that the truest description of the lion is that which treats 

 of the animating spirit, and not only of the outward form. In accordance with this principle, it has been 

 my endeavor to make the work rather anecdotal and vital than merely anatomical and scientific. The 

 object of a true zoologist is to search into the essential nature of every being, to investigate, according to 

 his individual capacity, the reason why it should have been placed on earth, and to give his personal service 

 to his Divine Master in developing that nature in the best manner and to the fullest extent. 



What do we know of Man from the dissecting room ? Of Man, the warrior, the statesman, the poet, 

 or the saint? In the lifeless corpse there are no records of the burning thoughts, the hopes, loves, and 

 fears that once animated that now passive form, and which constituted the very essence of the being. 

 Every nerve, fibre, and particle in the dead bodies of the king and the beggar, the poet and the boor, the 

 6aint and the sensualist, may be separately traced, and anatomically they shall all be alike, for neither of 

 the individuals is there, and on the dissecting table lies only the cast-off attire that the spirit no longer 

 needs. What can an artist learn, even of the outward form of Man, if he lives only in the dissecting room, 

 and studies the human frome merely through the medium of scalpel and scissors ? He may, indeed, obtain 

 an accurate muscular outline, but it will be an outline of a cold and rigid corpse, suggestive only of the 

 charnel-house, and devoid of the soft and rounded form, the delicate tinting, and breathing grace which 

 invest the living human frame. A feeling eye will always discover whether an artist has painted even his 

 details of attire from a lay figure instead of depicting the raiment as it rests upon and droops from the 

 breathing form of a living model ; for such robes are not raiment, but a shroud. So it is with the animal 

 kingdom. The zoologist will never comprehend the nature of any creature by the most careful investi- 

 gation of its interior structure or the closest inspection of its stuffed skin, for the material structure tells 

 little of the vital nature, and the stuffed skin is but the lay figure stiffly fitted with its own cast coat 



The true study of Zoology is of more importance than is generally conceived, for although " the proper 

 study of mankind is Man," it is impossible for us to comprehend the loftiness and grandeur of humanity, or 

 even its individual and physical nature, without possessing some knowledge of the earlier forms of God's 

 animated organizations. We must follow the order of creation, and as far as our perceptions will permit, 

 begin where the Creator began. We shall then find that no animal leads an isolated existence, for the 

 minutest atom of animated life which God has enfranchised with an individual existence, forms, though 

 independent in itself, an integral and necessary portion of His ever-chauging yet eternal organic universe. 

 Hence every being which draws the breath of life forms a part of one universal family, bound together by 

 the ties of a common creaturehood. And as being ourselves members of that living and breathing family, 

 we learn to view with clearer eyes and more reverent hearts those beings which, although less godlike than 

 ourselves in their physical or moral natures, demand for that very reason our kindliest sympathies and 

 most indulgent care. For we, being made in the image of God, are to them the visible representations of 

 that Divine Being who gave the Sabbath alike for man and beast, and who takes even the sparrows under 

 His personal protection. 



Vol. i. 



