PREFACE. 
IN' the present Volume I have endeavored to carry out, on a more extended scale, the principle which 
has been partially indicated in several of my smaller works; namely, to present to the reader the outlines 
of zoologic knowledge in a form that shall be readily comprehended, while it is as intrinsically valuable as 
if it were couched in the most repellent vocabulary of conventional technicalities. In acting thus, an 
author must voluntarily abnegate the veneration which attaches itself to those who are the accredited pos- 
sessors of abstruse learning, and must content himself with the satisfaction of having achieved the task 
which has been placed in his hands. In accordance with this principle, the technical language of scientific 
zoology has been carefully avoided, and English names have been employed wherever practicable in the 
place of Greek or Latin appellatives. 
Owing to the inordinate use of pseudo-classical phraseology, the fascinating study of animal life has 
been too long considered as a profession or a science restricted to a favored few, and interdicted to the 
many until they have undergone a long apprenticeship to its preliminary formula!. So deeply rooted is 
this idea, that the popular notion of a scientific man is of one who possesses a fund of words, and not of 
one who has gathered a mass of ideas. There is really not the least reason why any one of ordinary capa- 
bilities and moderate memory should not be acquainted with the general outlines of zoology, and possess 
some knowledge of the representative animals, which serve as types of each group, tribe, or family ; for 
when relieved of the cumbersome diction with which it is embarrassed, the study of animal life can be 
biought within the comprehension of all who care to examine the myriad varieties of form and color 
with which the Almighty clothes His living poems. 
The true object of Zoology is not, as some appear to fancy, to arrange, to number, and to ticket 
animals in a formal inventory, but to make the study an inquiry into the Life-nature, and not only an 
investigation of the lifeless organism. I must not, however, be understood to disparage the outward form, 
thing of clay though it be. For what wondrous clay it is, and how marvellous the continuous miracle by 
which the dust of earth is transmuted into the glowing colors and graceful forms which we most imper- 
fectly endeavor to preserve after the soul has departed therefrom. It is a great thing to be acquainted with 
the material framework of any creature, but it is a far greater to know something of the principle which 
gave animation to that structure. The former, indeed, is the consequence of the latter. The lion, for 
example, is not predaceous because it possesses fangs, talons, strength, and activity; on the contrary it 
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