xvi PREFACE. 



In such a case they will be enabled, by 

 means of this small dictionary, to make out 

 at least the principal characteristics of any 

 specimen they may be inclined to examine. 

 For the same reasons, a table of colours 

 has been considered worthy of insertion, 

 and has, therefore, been attempted, though 

 without any very sanguine hope of success. 

 So much depends upon the modification of 

 ideas with respect to colours, in themselves 

 so various, and so few people possess pre- 

 cisely the same impressions of mixed and 

 blending tints, that it becomes nearly 

 impossible to establish any thing like a 

 standard, by which the internal tracings 

 of a single subject of natural history shall 

 be accurately and intelligibly described. 

 The Latin terms of colour are in general 



