APPENDIX 
FABULOUS ANIMALS. 
HAVING constantly kept in view, from the beginning of 
this work, the combined plan of uniting interest with 
amusement, and truth unmixed with fable, we have re- 
jected several animals that had intruded themselves upon 
the reader, although they had no real claim to existence, 
and therefore no place in " The History of Nature." Yet, 
considering that some fabulous beings have frequently been 
made use of in poetry and allegorical paintings, we have 
thought it our duty to subjoin here an account of them, 
lest we might be accused, with some sort of apparent rea- 
son, of depriving infancy of instruction, youth of know- 
ledge, and maturer age of entertainment. The sphinx, 
the dragon, and several others, meet the eyes of children 
and adults nearly everywhere ; and since they do not find 
their names in the works of the historians of nature, and 
as there is no one at hand to satisfy the warm inquiries of 
those who thirst after knowledge, we have no doubt but a 
short account of these imaginary creatures will be deemed 
not only acceptable but useful to youth. 
