PREFACE. 
ix 
whose names will be found repeatedly quoted 
throughout the work. He will only add that in 
this, as well as in the descriptive department, he 
has had recourse, wherever it was possible, to 
original, and frequently to little known, works; 
and has very rarely indeed been guilty of a 
second-hand quotation. 
A few words may be necessary as to the arrange- 
ment, or rather the want of arrangement, in the 
body of the work. From the very nature of the 
collection which he had undertaken to illustrate, 
the Editor found it impossible to dispose his 
subjects in systematic order, without omitting in 
their proper places many of those valuable acqui- 
sitions which were continually pouring in to the 
Menagerie. For this reason it was at length 
determined to take them promiscuously, separating 
only the Birds from the Quadrupeds ; and to give 
at the close of each volume a systematic index of 
its contents. The Editor hoped too that before 
the conclusion of a volume he should be enabled 
to arrange the Quadrupeds in a series more 
strictly consonant with their natural affinities than 
any that has hitherto been proposed. But his 
own views upon the subject are not sufficiently 
matured for publication ; and those of his friend 
Mr. Vigors, which the zoological world are 
anxiously expecting, have not yet appeared. He 
