PREFACE. 
vli 
utterances, songs and cries ; their actions, in ease and 
under the pressure of circumstances ; their affections 
and passions, towards their young, towards each 
other, towards other animals, towards man: their 
various arts and devices, to protect their progeny, to 
procure food, to escape from their enemies, to de- 
fend themselves from attacks; their ingenious re- 
sources for concealment ; their stratagems to over- 
come their victims ; their modes of bringing forth, 
of feeding, and of training, their offspring ; the re- 
lations of their structure to their wants and habits ; 
the countries in which they dwell ; their connexion 
with the inanimate world around them, mountain or 
plain, forest or field, barren heath or bushy dell, open 
savanna or wild hidden glen, river, lake, or sea : — 
this would be indeed zoology ^ i. e» the science of living 
creatures. And if we have their portraits, let us have 
them drawn from the life, while the bright eyes are 
glancing, and the flexible features express the emo- 
tions of the mind within, and the hues, so often fleet- 
ing and evanescent, exist in their unchanged reality, 
and the attitudes are full of the elegance and grace 
that free, wild nature assumes. 
The author would not be misunderstood. He is 
far from despising the labours of those who describe 
and catalogue the specimens that travellers send to 
the cabinets of Europe. Careful and minute descrip- 
tions, accurate admeasurements, and distinctive names 
