{HE reception accorded by the English press and public to 
the present translation has exceeded my most sanguine 
expectations, and calls for my most grateful acknowledg- 
ae ments. It is gratifying to find so large an audience pre- 
pared to welcome a non-scientific and purely sentimental illustration 
of the claims of the Animal World to man’s consideration and sym- 
pathy. Zoological treatises by the ablest writers are to be found 
in every language, and the researches of comparative anatomists have 
led to very valuable and interesting results. But this is, perhaps, 
the first attempt that has been made by a man of genius to discover 
what we may call the inner nature of the animal, and reveal its 
feelings, passions, and higher impulses. “We have the Bird brought 
before us in the following pages as a sentient being, with its duties 
to perform, its mission to fulfil We are shown what it has to fear 
and what to hope; what are the perils and what the consolations of 
its existence ; how it is inspired by love and jealousy ; how it pos- 
sesses a faculty of combination and appreciation, of memory and 
reflection, which is something more than a cold mechanical instinct. 
