viii PREFACE 



circumstance that as the laws are superhuman, we need not be 

 quite certain that we know them. Pleasure in her ways, rather than 

 a cold comprehension of them, is Nature's surest gift to us, and I am 

 content if I have provided a setting of theory sufficient to make the 

 facts lustrous. 



I am deeply indebted to Mr. E. Yarrow Jones, who prepared the 

 beautiful designs, painted on Japanese silk, which have been 

 reproduced as the plates in this volume. I was anxious to obtain 

 the co-operation of an artist who would see the animals with his 

 own eyes, adopt his own decorative formula, and not be content 

 with setting down diagrams giving the data of colour and form that 

 we find useful in treatises on systematic zoology. I confess that 

 my delight was tinged with surprise when I found Mr. Jones's 

 art revealed individual and specific characters which cannot be 

 described by words and diagrams. I have also to offer my sincere 

 thanks to Mr. R. B. Brook-Greaves for his patience and skiU in 

 making the pencil-drawings for the text-figures. 



Finally I have to state my indebtedness, in general terms, to the 

 great army of writers on zoological subjects. To have tried to 

 attribute to its proper source each observation that I have used, 

 or each little piece of half-remembered theory, would have over- 

 weighted this book with historical pomp, and puffed out its slight 

 figure to unhealthy repletion. Although there are some observations 

 that are new, I claim credit for the mode of presentation rather than, 

 for what is presented. 



P. CHALMERS MITCHELL 



London, August 21, 1912 



