PREFACE 



N the following pages I have endeavoured to give, in 

 a series of picturesque sketches, a general view of 

 the natural history as well as of the physical 

 appearance of North and South America. 



I have first described the features of the country ; then its 

 vegetation ; and next the wild men and the brute creatures 

 which inhabit it. However, I have not been bound by any 

 strict rule in that respect, as my object has been to produce a 

 work calculated to interest the family circle rather than one 

 of scientific pretensions. I have endeavoured to impart, in an 

 attractive manner, information about its physical geography, 

 mineral riches, vegetable productions, and the appearance and 

 customs of the human beings inhabiting it. But the chief 

 portion of the work is devoted to accounts of the brute crea- 

 tion, from the huge stag and buffalo to the minute humming- 

 bird and persevering termites,- — introduced not in a formal 

 way, but as they appear to the naturalist-explorer, to the 

 traveller in search of adventures, or to the sportsman: with 



