VI 
PREFACE. 
which, originating with the ancient writers 
on natural history, have been handed down 
from age to age, and faithfully retained even 
by recent authors. It has been his object to 
exhibit as comprehensive a view as his limits 
would permit of the structure, habits, and 
manners of the animals selected for descrip- 
tion, and to enliven the work with anecdotes 
illustrative of the character and disposition of 
each, both in a state of nature and of domesti- 
cation. He will add that, filled with honour- 
able emulation of the superior excellences of 
the eminent artist with whose labours his have 
had the good fortune to be thus associated, he 
ventures to hope that his part of the task has 
been so performed as to prove not only pleas- 
ing, instructive, and useful to the young, but 
interesting even to persons of maturer under- 
standing. 
