PREFACE. V 
numbers inserted, each of the words, against 
which they stand, will be explained : whilst at least 
three of them would otherwise have been incompre- 
hensible by the generality of unscientific readers. 
It must be remarked that the reader will not 
here find an account of every production of na- 
ture, which is employed for the use of man, nor 
even all the uses of such objects as are described. 
The most important of the productions, and the 
principal of the uses, are all that he trusts can 
reasonably be required in a work of the present 
extent. On this ground it is that a great number 
of animals, which are in request only for food, 
have been wholly omitted. 
The figures that are inserted have been drawn 
upon as small and economical a scale as was com- 
patible with a sufficiently accurate representation 
of the objects to which they relate. If the reader 
be desirous of reference to further illustration, he 
will derive much satisfaction from the invaluable 
figures of Mr. Sowerby in his British and Exotic 
Mineralogy, and English Botany, and Woodville's 
Medical Botany; as well as from those in Dr. 
Shaw's General Zoology, and Bewick's Histories 
of Quadrupeds and British Birds. There are also 
many figures of useful animals in the author's own 
work, entitled " Memoirs of British Quadrupeds." 
