viii PREFACE. 
of interesting materials for Natural History. The whole Australian world lias been 
made known in our day, and it lias furnished its Ark of Beasts and Birds and Creep- 
ing Things — curious, strange, and wonderful — its birds alone filling seven volumes 
folio! The navies and armies of every civilized nation have now their corps of nat- 
uralists, and even the Explorations for a Railroad to the Pacific — a stupendous project, 
and worthy of great and good results — give to the world whole quartos of the most 
profound scientific research in respect to our local zoology."^" And hence it is tliat the 
treatises on ITatural History amount to entire libraries. The works consulted by 
Professor Baird, in the compilation of his MoMiWials and Birds of North America^ 
are in every language of Europe, and comprise, I believe, over two thousand vol- 
umes ; and all this in addition to his examination of specimens. Such is the vast ex- 
tent of this subject as presented in the books ! 
And yet, notwithstanding this aflluence of materials, and this grandeur to which 
the subject has been elevated by the combined labors of the civilized world ; notwith- 
standing its inherent interest, and its general popularity through traditional associa- 
tions with eminent writers of the past century, it is a remarkable fact, that there is 
not, in this country, a single publication which even pretends to give a ]3opular view 
of the •Animal Kingdom, as science now presents it. It is to be observed, that nearly 
all these w^orks which we have mentioned are strictly scientific, and at the same time 
special, and, in viev/ of the whole science, fragmentary. It is true that in England, 
France, and more particularly in Germany, there are many popular treatises on 
ISTatural History, but these for the most part are confined to particular branches of 
science — one to birds, another to quadrupeds, another to insects, and another to mol- 
lusca, &c. Some of our state governments have caused works on zoology to be pub- 
lished, such as that of !New York, issued under the superintendence of Dr. De Kay, 
that of Massachusetts, by Dr. Storer and others, and that of Ohio, by Dr. Kirtland ; 
but even these clever works are not only in mere outline, but they are local and 
partial. I^o one, at least in the English language, has recently ventured upon the 
attempt to present the whole subj ect in a comprehensive, popular form. There are 
condensed scientific outlines, indeed, but these are little more than expanded cata- 
logues or classifications of the whole science, and one of them — ^that of Dr. Clienu, for 
instance, now near its completion in Paris — comprises ten volumes quarto ! The cele- 
brated classification of the Genera of Birds, by G. P. Gray, published in London in 
1849, comprises three volumes quarto, and costs one hundred and fifty dollars! 
There are also other works giving abridged skeletons or outlines of the whole field ; 
but one suited to the people, or even designed lor the general reader, does not exist 
* See the two volumes on the Mammalia and Birds of North America, by Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian 
Institution, and just issued among the documents of the United States Senate ; these to be followed by a third 
volume on Reptiles. 
