n 
PREFACE. 
possesses these qualities because its inmost nature is predaceous, and it needs these appliances to enable it 
to carry out the innate principle of its being ; so that the truest description of the lion is that which treats 
of the animating spirit, and not only of the outward form. In accordance with this principle, it has been 
my endeavor to make the work rather anecdotal and vital than merely anatomical and scientific. The 
object of a true zoologist is to search into the essential nature of every being, to investigate, according to 
his individual capacity, the reason why it should have been placed on earth, and to give his personal service 
to his Divine Master in developing that nature in the best manner and to the fullest extent. 
What do we know of Man from the dissecting room ? Of Man, the warrior, the statesman, the poet, 
or the saint ? In the lifeless corpse there are no records of the burning thoughts, the hopes, loves, and 
fears that once animated that now passive form, and which constituted the very essence of the being. 
Every nerve, fibre, and particle in the dead bodies of the king and the beggar, the poet and the boor, the 
saint and the sensualist, may be separately traced, and anatomically they shall all be alike, for neither of 
the individuals is there, and on the dissecting table lies only the cast-off attire that the spirit no longer 
needs. What can an artist learn, even of the outward form of Man, if he lives only in the dissecting room, 
and studies the human frome merely through the medium of scalpel and scissors ? He may, indeed, obtain 
an accurate muscular outline, but it will be an outline of a cold and rigid corpse, suggestive only of the 
charnel-house, and devoid of the soft and rounded, form, the delicate tinting, and breathing grace which 
invest the living human frame. A feeling eye will always discover whether an artist has painted even his 
details cf attire from a lay figure instead of depicting the raiment as it rests upon and droops from the 
breathing form of a living model ; for such robes are not raiment, but a shroud. So it is with the animal 
kingdom. The zoologist will never comprehend the nature of any creature by the most careful investi- 
gation of its interior structure or the closest inspection of its stuffed skin, for the material structure tells 
little of the vital nature, and the stuffed skin is but the lay figure stiffly fitted with its own cast coat. 
The true study of Zoology is of more importance than is generally conceived, for although “ the proper 
study of mankind is Man,” it is impossible for us to comprehend the loftiness and grandeur of humanity, or 
even its individual and physical nature, without possessing some knowledge of the earlier forms of God’s 
animated organizations. We must follow the order of creation, and as far as our perceptions will permit, 
begin where the Creator began. We shall then find that no animal leads an isolated existence, for the 
minutest atom of animated life which God has enfranchised with an individual existence, forms, though 
independent in itself, an integral and necessary portion of His ever-changing yet eternal organic universe. 
Hence every being which draws the breath of life forms a part of one universal family, bound together by 
the ties of a common creaturehood. And as being ourselves members of that living and breathing family, 
we learn to view with clearer eyes and more reverent hearts those beings which, although less godlike than 
ourselves in their physical or moral natures, demand for that very reason our kindliest sympathies and 
most indulgent care. For we, being made in the image of God, are to them the visible representations of 
that Divine Being who gave the Sabbath alike for man and beast, and who takes even the sparrows under 
His personal protection. 
You L 
