INTRODUCTION. 
In every library of any magnitude, there are well written 
histories of the tenants of the air, from the smallest insect to 
the “ feathered King ” that sits on the rocky tops of our ma- 
jestic hills, and emblems our glory to the world: and of that 
class, also, which walk the earth, from those that minister to 
or oppose our comfort and happiness, to the “ gigantic un- 
known,” whose ante-deluvian origin appears almost fabulous. 
Man has analyzed man; and it has been supposed that the 
intricate machinery of the greatest work of the Maker, was 
well understood, yet every day seems to give new and con- 
vincing proofs that our knowledge is yet but limited. 
The sciences of Phrenology, Electricity, Magnetism, and, 
more latterly, Mesmerism, are daily opening new fields to 
the learned and curious; and regions which have formerly 
been considered as explored to their utmost depths, now pi ove 
mines of inexhaustible inquiry. Europe has furnished a 
Goldsmith, a Buffon, a Linnjeus, and a Cuvier, and our 
own country has not been backward in scientific researches. 
