X 
PREFACE. 
the animated beings which they describe ; they are, 
generally, not the results of brief and transient 
observations of their subjects, but of a protracted 
acquaintance with them, in which feature after 
feature was delineated, and line after line was added, 
from time to time. The Author has aimed to do 
more than merely give a record of the habits and 
instincts of animals ; he has essayed to describe (as 
well as feeble words may attain to do it) somewhat 
of the glory and loveliness of the scenes in which 
they dwell ; and he has endeavoured to do this with 
a kind of panoramic effect, so that the reader might 
have before his mind a succession of pictures, as it 
were, of a beauteous tropic island. 
In the arrangement of the Work the form of a 
Journal has been maintained to such an extent as to 
give a slight thread of continuity to the whole. It 
is not, however, a Diary; chronological sequence 
having been always made to yield to the superior 
advantage of unity and completeness in the exhi- 
bition of the various subjects. The Author has 
grouped together all the information that he had 
collected on each subject, though obtained at dif- 
ferent times ; and thus the memoirs generally take 
the form of monographs more or less complete. 
The following pages are enriched with many 
papers from another pen. The Author considers it 
one of the happiest reminiscences of a visit unusually 
