PREFACE. 
In the year 1852 the Council of the Zoological Society, impressed with a sense of the great value of 
an accurate artistic record of the living form and expression of the many rare species of animals which 
exist from time to time in the Menagerie, resolved to commence the formation of a series of original 
water-colour drawings to illustrate the most interesting of these subjects. 
For this purpose the Council were fortunate enough to secure the services of Mr. Joseph Wolf, who 
may he fairly said to stand alone in intimate knowledge of the habits and for m s of Mammals and of 
Birds. By this gentleman, the series of drawings undertaken in accordance with the foregoing 
resolution, which now amount to above eighty in number, have been wholly executed. 
In 1856, the late Mr. D. W. Mitchell, then Secretary to the Society, having obtained the permission of 
the Council for that purpose, entered into arrangements with Messrs. Graves & Co. for the publication 
of a selection of these drawings. In pursuance of these arrangements the first number of Zoological 
Sketches was issued to the public in 1856, and the succeeding numbers followed in due course, each 
double part containing eight illustrations and a sheet of temporary letter-press. 
Upon the death of the late Mr. Mitchell, in 1859, which occurred shortly after the publication of 
Parts vii. and viii. of the Zoological Sketches, I gladly undertook, at the request of Messrs. Graves 
and Co., to assist in the completion of the work. I accordingly selected the subjects for the 
concluding parts, and wrote the temporary letter-press to accompany them. 
I have also prepai'ed the permanent letter-press which is now given with the thirteenth and 
concluding part of the work. In relation to this, I should mention that though one or two of the 
articles (such as that relating to the Hippopotamus and the Alpaca) have not undergone any material 
alterations, the whole of the letter-press has been carefully revised, and where it has not been entirely 
re-written, all such additions have been made as are rendered necessary by the progress of science 
since the publication of the original issue. 
PHILIP LUTLEY SCLATER. 
11, Hanover Square, 
March 11/A, 1861. 
