PREFAC E. 



I avail myself of the opportunity which an annual address affords 

 of making a few remarks on the present state of our favorite study 

 and pursuit. I have observed with sincere pleasure the progress which 

 Natural History is making throughout the kingdom : many years have 

 elapsed since I first made the hazardous attempt of rendering that 

 science popular, without at the same time diminishing its value as a 

 structure built with truths : it seemed to be my mission, so to speak, 

 to strip this study of its uncouth and tiresome technicalities without 

 departing one jot or tittle from a rigid adherence to fact. When I 

 conceived this idea our shelves were not so much encumbered with ab- 

 struse technicalities as they were weighed down by unsound, untrue, and 

 therefore worthless compilations, in which everything was sacrificed 

 to a popular style designed exclusively to secure extensive sale. I 

 will not however entirely condemn such publications : although this 

 cheap and easy reading was totally unworthy of trust ; and if studied 

 with attention would certainly promote ignorance rather than know- 

 ledge ; still the multitude of histories abridged, however inaccurately,* 

 from careful compilations or genuine histories, when diffused amongst 

 hundreds and perhaps thousands of readers whose attention was thus 

 first directed to subjects of the highest interest, became useful as 



* In one of the very best of these volumes the honey bee figured as Stylops ; while 

 Stylops was labouring at the manufacture of a honeycomb : a well-delineated Cicada 

 was the representative of a locust ; and a grasshopper, as a fair and just equivalent, was 

 called a Cicada. 



