INTRODUCTION. 
Tue first volume of the Hunter-Naturauist is merely 
introductory to what I propose to make, in every sense, a 
‘‘ progressive” series of seven volumes. 
My cherished object in this undertaking is, to introduce 
within the general scope of Polite Literature, a popular 
Natural History: upon the production of which I have so 
brought to bear the latest discoveries of Science, in the 
application of mechanical forces to pictorial illustration, as 
to cheapen all their cost without any deterioration of artistic 
value; and bring the essential spirit of what have been here- 
tofore as sealed books, from their excessive costliness, within 
the reach of the People. 
Then, again, what I mean by “popular” is to be found 
in a regard of the highest sense of this vulgarized and 
misused term in contrast with that of the scholastic use of 
“technical’’—a work belonging rather to the general litera- 
ture than technical science of Natural History—treating of 
its facts as well as cognate associations. A work, indeed, 
aiming to be as gay as it is grave—as fanciful as it is 
profound—as theoretical as accurate—as full of flesh and 
blood as of philosophy—as human as it is transcendental— 
as rhapsodically intoxicate as the hale air and blithe sunshine 
out-of-doors can make it—and just sufficiently spiced with 
“learning” not to make one “mad.” A work in which the 
Animal Kingdom shall illustrate the Spiritual, and the Spirit- 
ual the Animal, as well. A work in which Bird and Beast 
shall be humanized to Man through Nature, and Man shown 
to have been inhumanized to Beast and Bird through Society 
—which shall rebuke fanaticism for its ignorance of natural 
laws, while it shall plead against wantonness with our race 
for reconciliation and for mercy to the humblest of Go's 
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