PREFACE. 
Although I have stated the plan of this work in a full title-page, and have more- 
over somewhat enlarged npon it in the Introduction, there seems to me still a propri- 
ety in, if not a necessity for, a few detailed remarks, by way of Preface. A little 
reflection will satisfy any one that my undertaking in these pages is a difhcnlt, if not 
a hazardous one. I seek to comprise a subject of vast, nay, boundless extent, within 
the narrow compass of two volumes ; I endeavor to reconcile something of the stern- 
ness of science with the license of the describer, the narrator, and the anecdotist ; I 
place myself between the Scylla of scientific naturalists on one side, and the Charybdis 
of popular taste on the other. Therefore, even if a preface be, as is generally held, 
an author's weakness, I ask the kindly indulgence usually extended to these perform- 
ances, inasmuch as they are regarded like the plea of a criminal at the bar, and the 
Public would not pronounce judgment without giving him a hearing. 
At the outset, then, I beg to say that this book is not designed for the benefit of 
scientific naturalists, and yet I liope to obtain their approbation, however defective 
and deficient it may appear in their view. It is written for the great mass of readers, 
who have not the means of purchasing the hundreds and thousands of volumes in 
which the History of Animated Nature is now embodied ; for those who do not under- 
stand the technicalities of science, and who are, as a matter of necessity, driven from 
