XIV 
NATURAL HISTORY 
certainly more interest taken in it during early life than later cil As a rule, men have no time for it, 
or they find that, after gaining a certain amount of knowledge, they must study hard if further progress 
is to be made. Moreover, the vast amount of useless things which had to be learned at school and 
college have no relation to Natural History, except, perhaps, to convey erroneous ideas and to teach 
fables, so that this important science has usually to be commenced in earnest after the usual education 
has been completed. When the determination has been made to learn the Natural History of Animals 
the student will have to study two separate, yet inter-dependent, branches of knowledge, namely, 
Zoology and Comparative Anatomy : for the one considers the external shape, habits, distribution, and 
classification of animals, and the other refers to their internal construction, anatomy, and physiology, 
and the relation which the internal parts bear to the external in the scheme of classification. These 
studies are evidently inseparable. 
Now, it is the fact that, owing to the importance of Comparative Anatomy to those who study 
the Anatomy of Man, it is much more frequently learned than simple Zoology. Comparative Anatomy is 
useful to the medical man, but Zoology is not, and therefore the majority of students whose previous 
education has led them up to Natural History care but little for the classificatory part. It is equally 
true that the names and the apparently complicated methods of expression used by zoologists deter 
most people from the study. If this is a correct view of the relation of the Natural History of 
Animals to our education, and to the advance of our intellectual culture, it is evident that there is a 
weak point in the method of the instruction of this charming science during that age when young 
people begin to inquire for more solid information. The story-book has been read, and the heavy 
work on Zoology and Comparative Anatomy is as yet sealed, and hence books are required in advance of 
the one and which will lead up to the other — books which, whilst they entertain, instruct and convey, 
in simple language, the results of the best and latest scientific inquiries. This kind of literature 
should, moreover, be sufficiently meritorious to attract the general reader who may desire information 
in any particular portion of the Natural History of Animals. 
The book, of which this is the Preface, has been written in order to obviate the difficulties 
which have been alluded to, and to form a useful and enteitaining Natural History of Animals. 
It is the result of the work of several English naturalists — of men who have felt the want of 
such a book in their own studies, and who have had to encounter the difficulties which it is 
trusted that it will remove. Every endeavour has been made to explain the most interesting facts 
simply and correctly, and to unite the studies of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. The anecdotes 
of the instinct and habits, and of the methods of the capture of animals, have been given so as to 
illustrate particular gifts and the actions of important organs and structures. 
The plan of this Work is not to open with a classification of animals, the majority of whose 
names and shapes are entirely unknown to the reader, but to describe the shape, nature, and habits 
of groups of creatures, and then, when they have become familiar, to arrange and classify them. 
In a popular work it seems more desirable to proceed upon a plan of this kind, than to lead off 
with an introduction dealing with the nature and importance of Natural History studies, 
with the abstract ideas of classification, and with the explanation of the necessity of dividing 
the Animal kingdom according to the principles of Comparative Anatomy. For, obviously, 
such an introduction would to a large extent defeat the very objects with which this Work 
has been undertaken. 
