XIV INTRODUCTION. 



whose beautiful, able, and accurate work on British Ichthyology, now in the course 

 of publication, will, it is to be hoped, be a means of reviving, in this country, a 

 taste for that branch of natural history. Lastly, I have again to acknowledge the 

 attention of the officers of the British Museum, whenever I have had occasion to 

 consult its library, or natural history collection, and particularly that of my friend 

 J. E. Gray, Esq., upon whose valuable time I have had occasion frequently to draw 

 very largely. Part of the specimens described in this work were, as I have already 

 mentioned, examined and named by the truly illustrious Cuvier, and I would gladly 

 have submitted the rest to his inspection as they arrived ; but in common with 

 other naturalists, and the civilized world in general, I have had to deplore his 

 death, which, notwithstanding the vastness of his labours in zoology, must be 

 considered as premature for the interests of science; though we look with 

 confidence to his able coadjutor, M. Valenciennes, for the completion of the 

 unrivalled Histoire des Poissons. I may also notice here, the deaths of two 

 naturalists to whom the former volumes of this work are much indebted. 

 Their walk in science was indeed far beneath the lofty platform which Cuvier 

 constructed, but they were unrivalled in the paths they chose for themselves. 

 I allude, in the first place, to Mr. David Douglas, to whose researches in 

 North California, and on the banks of the Columbia, we owe many of the most 

 beautiful hardy flowers which ornament our gardens. He perished miserably in 

 the Sandwich Islands, by falling into a pit in which a wild bull had been pre- 

 viously taken, where the infuriated animal gored him to death. Thomas 

 Drummond, of Forfar, the other gentleman whose loss I have to record, was my 

 friend and associate on Sir John Franklin's second expedition. An enthusiastic 

 admirer of animals and plants, he was eminently qualified for a collector of objects 

 of natural history, by an extreme quickness and acuteness of vision, and a wonder- 

 ful tact in detecting a new species. His favourite pursuits were carried on under 

 circumstances of domestic discomfort and difficulties, that would have quelled a 

 meaner spirit, — the contemplation of the works of God on the mountain top, or in 

 the bosom of the forest, serving to soothe the sorrows of his wounded mind. In 

 his company, and by his aid, most of the birds described in the second volume of 



