INTRODUCTION. 
V 
in its youth, that there is scarcely a district, even 
in our own nation, of which w r e are able to be- 
lieve that our knowledge of its Natural History 
is nearly complete. 
Other reasons may be given for studying the 
science in a particular district. It is known that 
Animals are not indiscriminately scattered over 
the face of the Earth ; but that certain species 
are the inhabitants of regions, beyond the limits 
of which their appearance is regarded as extra- 
ordinary ; and the precise knowledge of those 
limits, the reasons why they are confined to them, 
with the changes which peculiarities of food and 
climate effect in an individual, constituting what 
Naturalists call a variety, are most likely to be 
thus attained, and our acquaintance with nature 
in general, so much the more improved. 
These observations apply with especial force to 
the County of Cornwall. Situated at the extre- 
mity of the Kingdom, and projecting into the 
depths of the Atlantic, its position, climate and 
mineralogical structure combine to assign it a dis- 
tinguished place in natural science above most 
other Counties of England ; in comparison with 
which its quadrupeds and feathered inhabitants 
are as numerous and various, while the residents 
of its waters are even more so ; and taken together 
they form such an aggregate of interest as will 
well repay the attention of the enquirer. 
In laying before the public an enumeration of 
these tribes and species, it has been the intention 
first to ascertain the individual kinds, as they 
are recognized by modern Naturalists ; in doing 
which care has been taken to avoid a multiplicity 
of references, that might have been easily collect- 
ed to a large amount without a corresponding 
increase of the reader’s information ; for it must 
he allowed that the more ancient writers are very 
loose in their discrimination of species, and the 
