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curiosity of such as delight in these studies will be in some measure satisfied. Such of them as have been more generally admired, have been longest insisted upon, and particularly caterpillars and butterflies, relative to which, perhaps, there is the largest catalogue that has ever appeared in the English language.

Mr. Edwards and Mr. Buffon, one in the History of Birds, the other of Quadrupeds, have undoubtedly deserved highly of the public, as far as their labors have extended; but as they have hitherto cultivated but a small part in the wide field of natural history, a comprehensive system in this most pleasing science has been hitherto wanting. Nor is it a little surprising, when every other branch of literature has been of late cultivated with so much success among us, how this most interesting department should have been neglected. It has been long obvious that Aristotle was incomplete, and Pliny credulous; Aldrovandus too prolix, and Linnæus too short, to afford the proper entertainment; yet we have had no attempts to supply their defects, or to give a history of nature at once complete and concise, calculated at once to please and improve.

How far the author of the present performance has obviated the wants of the public in these respects, is left to the world to determine; this much, however, he may without vanity assert, that whether the system here presented be approved or not, he has left the science in a better state than he found it. He has consulted every author whom he imagined might give him new and authentic information, and painfully searched through heaps of lumber to detect falsehood; so that many parts of the following work have exhausted much labor in the execution, though they may discover little to the superficial observer.

Nor have I neglected any opportunity that offered of conversing upon these subjects with travellers, upon whose judg ments and veracity I could rely. Thus comparing accurate

narrations with what has been already written, and following either, as the circumstances or credibility of the witness led me to believe. But I have one advantage over almost all former naturalists; namely, that of having visited a variety of countries myself, and examined the productions of each upon the spot. Whatever America or the known parts of Africa have produced to excite curiosity, has been carefully observed by me, and compared with the accounts of others. By this I have made some improvements, that will appear in their place, and have been less liable to be imposed upon by the hearsay relations of credulity.

A complete, cheap, and commodious body of natural history being wanted in our language, it was these advantages which prompted me to this undertaking. Such, therefore, as choose to range in the delightful fields of nature, will, I flatter myself, here find a proper guide; and those who have a design to furnish a cabinet, will find copious instructions. With one of these volumes in his hand, a spectator may go through the largest museum, the British not excepted, see nature through all her varieties, and compare her usual operations with those wanton productions, in which she seems to sport with human sagacity. I have been sparing, however, in the description of the deviations from the usual course of production; first, because such are almost infinite, and the natural historian who should spend his time in describing deformed nature, would be as absurd as the statuary who should fix upon a deformed man from whom to take his model of perfection.

But I would not raise expectations in the reader which it may not be in my power to satisfy: he who takes up a book of science must not expect to acquire knowledge at the same easy rate that a reader of romance does entertainment. On the contrary, all sciences, and natural history among the rest, have a

language and a manner of treatment peculiar to themselves; and he who attempts to dress them in borrowed or foreign ornaments, is every whit as uselessly employed as the German apothecary we are told of, who turned the whole dispensatory into verse. It will be sufficient for me, if the following system is found as pleasing as the nature of the subject will bear; neither obscured by unnecessary ostentation of science, nor lengthened out by an affected eagerness after needless embellishment.

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The description of every object will be found as clear and concise as possible, the design not being to amuse the ear with well-turned periods, or the imagination with borrowed ornaments, but to impress the mind with the simplest views of nature. answer this end more distinctly, a picture of such animals is given as we are least acquainted with. All that is intended by this is, only to guide the inquirer with more certainty to the object itself, as it is to be found in nature. I never would advise a student to apply to any science, either anatomy, physic, or natural history, by looking on pictures only; they may serve to direct him more readily to the objects intended, but he must by no means suppose himself possessed of adequate and distinct ideas, till he has viewed the things themselves, and not their representations.

Copper-plates, therefore, moderately well done, answer the learner's purpose every whit as well as those which cannot be purchased but at a vast expense: they serve to guide us to the archetypes of nature, and this is all that the finest picture should be permitted to do; for nature herself ought always to be examined by the learner before he has done.

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INTRODUCTION, &c.

PART I.-OF QUADRUPEDS IN GENERAL, AND THEIR WAY OF LIVING.

When we turn our eyes to that variety of beings endued with life, which share with us the globe we inhabit, we shall find that Quadrupeds demand the foremost place. The similitude between the structure of their bodies and our own; those instincts which they seem to enjoy in a superior degree to the (ther classes that live in air or water; their constant services to man, or the unceasing enmity they bear him, all render them the fcremost objects of his curiosity, the most interesting part of animated nature.

In the first ages of the world, it is probable that all living creatures were nearer an equality than at present. Man, while yet savage himself, was but ill-qualified to civilize the forest. While yet naked, unarmed, and without shelter, every wild beast was a formidable rival, and the destruction of such was the first employment of heroes. But when he began to multiply, and arts to accumulate, he soon cleared the plains of its brute inhabitants; he soon established an empire over all the orders of animated nature: a part was taken under his protection and care, while the rest found a precarious refuge in the burning desert of the howling wilderness.

The most obvious and simple division therefore of quadrupeds, is into the domestic and savage; by domestic I mean, such as man has taken into friendship, or reduced to obedience; by the savage, those who still preserve their natural independence and ferocity; who either oppose force by force, or find safety in swiftness or cunning.

The savage animal preserves at once his liberty and instinct, but man seems to have changed the very nature of domes

tic animals by cultivation and care. A domestic animal is a slave, which has few other desires, but those which man is willing to grant it. Humble, patient, resigned, and attentive, it fills up the duties assigned; ready for labor, and content with subsistence.

But not only its native liberty, its very figure is changed by the arts and industry of man: what an immense variety in the ordinary race of dogs, or horses; what a difference between the large English mastiff and the small Spanish lap-dog; yet the. whole has been effected by the nature of the climate and food, seconded by the industry of man, in continuing the species without mixture.

As in external figure they bear evident marks of human cultivation, so is there also some difference in the internal structure of their bodies. The stomach of the domestic animal is not usually so large for such receiving food at certain and expected intervals, and that but by little at a time, this intestine seems to contract to its contents, and fits the animal for the life it is obliged to lead.

Thus we, in some measure, see nature under a continual constraint, in those creatures we have taught to live about us; but it is otherwise when we come to examine the savage tenants of the forest or the wilderness; there every species preserves its characteristic form, and is strongly imprest with the instincts and appetites of nature. The more remote from the tyranny of mankind, the greater seems their sagacity: the beavers, in those distant solitudes where men have rarely past, exert all the arts of architects and citizens; they build neȧter habitations than even the rational inhabitants of those countries can show, and obey a more regular discipline than ever man could boast; but as soon as man intrudes upon their society, their spirit of indus try and wisdom ceases; they no longer exert their social arts,

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