WILLIAM SMELLIE. 
41 
5. On dreaming and somnambulism. 
6. On hibernation, or the torpid state to which 
some animals are reduced during winter. 
7. On the language of beasts. 
8. Miscellaneous remarks on the comparative 
pleasures and sufferings of animals. 
9. On poisonous animals, with an account of 
hydrophobia. 
Mr Smellie thus concludes the work, — 
“ I have now finished my original plan, with 
what success I know not. I shall only' say, what 
every intelligent reader will easily perceive, that 
my labours have been great. Before I began 
the work, had I known the numerous authors 
which it was necessary' to peruse and consult, I 
should probably have shrunk back, and given up 
the attempt as impracticable, especially for a 
man so early engaged in the business of life, and 
the cares resulting from a family of no less than 
thirteen children, ten of whom are still in life. 
“ In the first and second volumes I have 
endeavoured to unfold the general as well as 
distinctive properties of the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms. Occasionally I have done more. I 
have sometimes given pretty full characters both 
of the figure, dispositions, and manners of 
animals. In these descriptive discursions man 
has not been neglected. Being the principal 
animal in this planet, he of course deserved 
particular attention, and it has not been withheld. 
The varieties of the human species in every 
region of the globe, have been collected and 
