Till 
PREFACE. 
are absolutely indispensable to science ; hut they 
must not he confounded with science itself. Valuable 
as these details are, they form only the stepping- 
stone by which we arrive at the knowledge of 
animals ; or rather they are the cumbrous machinery 
by which that knowledge is preserved and com- 
municated to the world. The knowledge of the 
name, position, and size of every rope in a ship is 
absolutely necessary to a seaman, for without it 
there could be no precision in command, no co- 
operation in obedience ; — but surely it is \ioiseaman- 
ship; and he who should suppose himself a skilful 
navigator, with only such knowledge, though acquired 
with the most minute pains, by actual study of a ship 
lying in port, would find himself egregiously mistaken, 
when he came to battle with sky and sea, tempests 
and billows and currents, quicksands, and bristling 
rocks, and the breakers of a lee shore. 
Let closet-science take its true place as the hand- 
maid of Natural History ; arranging and appropriating 
the observations of the true naturalist, and enabling 
him to record them with precision. The former may 
be compared to the shelves, drawers, and pigeon-holes 
of a cabinet, carefully arranged, affording a place for 
every thing; the latter to a room-full of valuable 
objects and curiosities, thrown promiscuously in a heap. 
The objects themselves are almost unavailable until 
they be arranged in the shelves and drawers appro- 
