X PREFACE. 
on going for tlie first time into the country, and seeing the milking of the cow, the 
plowing of the field, the scampering of the lambs, the gambols of the calf, the swim- 
ming of the ducks and geese, immediately recognize them as things they had seen in 
the humble but still speaking wood-cuts in their primers. I have frequently seen 
children, on going into a menagerie, name the principal beasts, though they had never 
seen one of them before ; but they had become acquainted with them from the wood- 
cuts in their story-books. Every person must be familiar with similar evidences, 
derived from his own experience, of the effect of these unpretending illustrations. 
"Wood engraving, for several reasons, is, indeed, especially adapted to popular works 
on IsTatural History. One is the greater economy, so that we are able in this work 
to give more than fourteen hundred portraits of animals. Another is, that from its 
nature it is very effective in the rejDresentation of feathers and hair, the integuments 
of birds and quadrupeds ; it is hardly less adapted to the representation of the scales 
of fishes and the shells of moUusca. A still more important reason is, that these en- 
gravings are now universally made from drawings on the wood, and the engraver 
merely cuts out the lights, leaving the shades just as the designer drew them. There- 
fore, a wood engraving is ay«c simile of the original design, and hence it is that these 
generally possess a spirit, life, and verisimilitude, even beyond many copper or litho- 
graphic engravings. The "English Cyclopedia of IS^atural History" asserts that the 
wood engravings in Bell's and Yarrell's Beasts and Birds of G-reat Britain^ — and which, 
by the way, we have extensively copied in the following pages — are manifestly supe- 
rior, for the conveyance of accurate impressions of the aspects of animals, to some of 
the colored engravings in the more imposing books of science. The majestic air of 
the lion, the sly visage of the fox, the vivacity of the squirrel, the pertness of the 
wren, the crawling gait of the spider, and indeed all the characteristics of external 
appearance in animals, except color — all those ind.eed which mere words cannot 
convey— are generally more successfully represented in fine wood • engravings than in 
any other. 
And finally, what is more important than all in a work like this, for the house and 
the home, and for daily use, these engravings — being in immediate contact with the 
descriptive text — are consulted Avithout the trouble of referring to an index and turning 
over leaves, and are therefore more convenient and useful, as illustrations, than the ma- 
jority of steel and copper engravings, which are, of necessity, separated from the text. 
It is hoped, therefore, that the numerous and clever engravings of this work — more 
ample than have ever appeared in any similar publication, and inserted, not as mere 
embellishments, but for the most part as descriptions of animels — may render it 
acceptable, even if in any other respects it may seem defective. 
It may be necessary to state the extent to which this work carries the notice of 
particular species of animals. As there are a quarter of a million of species in the 
,Animal Kingdom, a very narrow selection for particular description must of course be 
