[ x ] 
inferted the feats of fuch gentlemen as exprefled their defire to have them en- 
graved j the fronts were all meafured, and (which has not, I apprehend, been yet 
done in fuch collections) all printed by the fame Scale c (to be applied to the fronts 
only) except two, whofe owners chofe to have their houfes lefs, that more of 
the adjoining country and their own plantations might be inferted. For 'thefe 
plates I am obliged to the Proprietors. 
In the other plates, the fubjeds engraved, are either of the natural fize, or 
by a fcale annexed in the fame plate ; for want of which regulation, great obfcu- 
rity has attended the engravings of fome of the moil celebrated authors, whilfi: 
fifli and birds, cattle and foflils, are reprefented without due relation to the fize 
of one another. The Subjeds engraved are not always new, but the drawings 
were made from nature, and may be of fervice upon many occafions, where 
authors who have gone before, either could not themfelves delineate, or had 
no opportunity of feeing the natural fubjeds, and were obliged to make drawings 
after relations, and the hafty Iketches of others. 
Not always aiming at what is new, much lefs at what is marvellous, the 
Author contents himfelf with faithfully reprefenting the natural bodies which 
came under his examination, as the beft method of adding his mite to 
Natural Knowledge, and of making fome advances, fure perhaps, though 
not many. 
In the account of Foflils I may feem tedious and too minute to thofe who 
have no propenfity to fuch ftudies, but let it be confidered that they are the 
diftinguifhing produds of our County, and to thofe who are fenfible of what ufe 
it is to have thefe bodies critically charaderifed, I wilh I may not appear too 
fhort and unfatisfadory. 
As our birds, and plants, and quadrupeds cannot be fuppofed to be very dif- 
ferent from thofe of the other parts of England, and have moftly been defcribed 
before, they take up lefs time of the Reader here. 
A few pages of the book which follows d were publifhed in the Philofophical 
Tranfadions of the Royal Society, but they were always intended as parts of 
this Work, detached , indeed and fent before, though not irrevocably given up by 
the author, and as difperfed fragments (unlefs I am mifinformed) I had a right 
to revife, and re-unite them. 
c The Scale is only affixed to the firft houfe, nilh cryftals ; a thunder-ftorm in the parifh of 
viz. Plate iv. page 51. Gulval ; and the agitation of the Sea, on the firft 
d Treatife of the origin and properties of Cor- of November, 1755. 
Besides 
