PREFACE. 
V 
such the best compensation is furnished by 
books containing spirited and faithful deline- 
ations and accurate descriptions. To this 
Merit the work now before the reader lays 
claim. Not aspiring to the dignity of a com- 
plete system of the science, it professes only 
to exhibit a selection of the more remark- 
able individuals of the quadruped tribes. The 
illustrations are from drawings, taken almost 
all of them from living specimens, by an artist 
justly celebrated for the spirit, vigour, and 
fidelity of his animal portraitures : and it may 
be confidently affirnied that, whether consi- 
dered as correct representations of the sub- 
jects, or as works of art, they have never been 
equalled in any publication specially appro- 
priated to the young. In the descriptive por- 
tion the compiler has been solicitous to em- 
body all such authentic information as can 
interest the general reader, divested of purely 
scientific details, and sifted from those fables. 
