PREFACE. 
This popular Natural History of Animals is now complete in Six Volumes. Its 
publication commenced six years ago, and it has been regularly issued as a monthly 
serial. Owing to the necessity for consulting the convenience of the authors of the 
different articles in the Work, and for preparing the vast number of illustrations, it 
was impossible to publish the book as a whole at once. Intended as a useful, 
plainly- written Natural History, which might, besides being entertaining, lead up to 
higher works on the subject, the book has not suffered in accuracy by its length 
of publication. The great advance in Natural History during the last six years has 
been in the knowledge of the anatomy, physiology and embryology, or early growth, 
of the lower animals. In consequence of the arrangement here adopted, by which 
the descriptions of the Invertebrates were referred to the two concluding volumes, 
the different writers have been enabled to avail themselves of the most recent 
researches in this interesting and important branch of zoology. As the subject of 
embryology hardly comes within the scope of a work on popular Natural History, 
it has been omitted. 
The Work consists of a series of articles, written by well-known scientific 
Naturalists, arranged in succession so as to fall in with a zoological classification. 
Every author is responsible for the statements made in the pages of his particular 
essay. It is trusted that when the serial nature of the Work is considered, the few 
errors that must inevitably occur in such a book, despite every precaution to the 
contrary, will be condoned by the faultless pages of most of the contributors, 
amongst whom Miss Crane holds a prominent position. 
The desire of the various authors has been to place facts rather than opinions 
before their readers, and to combine the description of the animal and its method 
of life in a reasonable classification. 
P. MAKTIN DUNCAN. 
January , 1883 . 
