PREFACE. 



The study of Animated ]S"ature is indispensable to a 

 proper understanding of the great plan of Creation, the 

 beneficent Author of which has assigned to each crea- 

 ture its separate place, given it specific functions to 

 perform, and endowed it with such faculties as are ne- 

 cessary to the preservation of life and the continuation 

 of its species. The present volume has been compiled 

 with the view of presenting the requisite information 

 in such shape as will make the subject attractive alike 

 to youth or to the mature reader, who might perhaps 

 be deterred from a perusal of more difiuse histories by 

 the prolixity of detail, or the too scientific character of 

 the work. "Written in plain and familiar language, and 

 divested of most of the technicalities which are calcu- 

 lated rather to embarrass than to inform the general 



reader, this unpretending vol urae is so arranged as to 



(iii) 



