PREFACE. 
Vll 
The first requisite for the attainment of the end 
proposed was obviously an extensive circulation ; 
and this could only be secured by the use of the 
common forms of our language, in place of those 
technical expressions which render most scientific 
works unintelligible to the general reader. Such 
expressions the Editor has studiously endeavoured 
to avoid ; and in the few instances in which he 
has been compelled, for the sake of perspicuity, 
to have recourse to them, he has either added an 
explanation of their meaning, or so modelled the 
context as to render explanation unnecessary to 
any person of even moderate education. By thus 
addressing his language to the world at large, 
instead of confining it by the use of technicalities 
to the limited circle of professed zoologists, he 
trusts that he has to a certain extent enlarged the 
boundaries of the science without detracting from 
its real importance ; for it has been his endeavour 
throughout the work to employ English terms as 
definite in their meaning and as precise in their 
limitation as those which are usually considered 
exclusively zoological. 
With this intelligible language it was necessary 
to combine a scrupulous accuracy in regard to 
facts. For this purpose the drawings of all the 
animals have been made from individual specimens 
in the Society's Menagerie ; and the descriptions 
