XVI 
PREFACE. . 
In such a case they will be enabled, by 
means of this small dictionary, to make out 
at least the principal characteristics of any 
specimen they may be inclined to examine. 
For the same reasons, a table of colours 
has been considered worthy of insertion, 
and has, therefore, been attempted, though 
without any very sanguine hope of success. 
So much depends upon the modification of 
ideas with respect to colours, in themselves 
so various, and so few people possess pre- 
cisely the same impressions of mixed and 
blending tints, that it becomes nearly 
impossible to establish any thing like a 
standard, by which the internal tracings 
t)f a single subject of natural history shall 
be accurately and intelligibly described. 
The Latin terms of colour are in general 
