PREFACE.

IT is scarcely necessary to remind the Public that we possess no complete and compendious work on zoology in our language commensurate, at least, with the modern improvements and discoveries in that science. And that while the naturalists of the continent have been zealously and rapidly enlarging the extent, and determining the limits of the various departments of the animal kingdom, we have evinced but little solicitude to participate in their labours or to emulate their acquirements.

The attempt to supply a work of this description, and to excite, if possible, a little more attention to this very interesting subject, cannot, it is presumed, require apology. With this view it was originally intended that the present book should have been presented to the Public in an original form; but upon consideration that the system almost altogether, as well as much of the materials would be derived from the illustrious naturalist to whom the science of organized nature is so deeply indebted, it was

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thought better to translate the whole of his compendium of zoology, the "Regne Animal," and to make such additions to it as might appear requisite to render the present work not merely useful to the naturalist as a book of pure science, but also interesting at large as a general zoological biography, and ornamental as containing original and well-executed illustrations. It was thus proposed to avoid the charge of unacknowledged or repeated plagiarisms on the one side, or of presumptuous temerity on the other.

The propriety of this course will, it is hoped, further appear, when it is considered that the "Regne Animal" of Cuvier itself is little else than a scientific, though partial, catalogue or synopsis of the living tribes, arranged according to the laws of their conformation. It was meant to serve as an introduction to his still more elaborate work on Comparative Anatomy, and intended chiefly for the use of professional students it is consequently deficient in much popular and entertaining matter relative to the instincts, habits, &c., of animals, and contains only a partial selection of the various species sufficient for the purpose of illustrating the different genera. To supply this deficiency, additional descriptions of all the species will

be here found proportioned in extent to the interest each may offer. Thus while a complete translation is given of the "Regne Animal” with as much closeness and accuracy as the corresponding idioms of the two languages will permit, much that is interesting and important from the pens of other modern naturalists and travellers, and from original sources, will be found subjoined by way of supplement.

It is feared that some repetitions, and perhaps occasional apparent diffusiveness, may have resulted from this plan; they have, however, been avoided as much as possible, and when detected, it is hoped will be deemed venial, if not absolutely necessary.

It may be proper to state here the objects Cuvier had in view in his work on the Animal Kingdom, together with a summary of his labours upon it. This we shall do in his own words.

"I was necessitated," (says the Baron, in the preface to his Regne Animal,') “in furtherance of my object, to make anatomy and zoology, dissection and classification, proceed hand in hand together,-in my first remarks on organization, to look for the best general principles of distribution, to employ those principles in making new observations,

and those new observations in their turn, to carry to perfection the general principles of distribution. In fine, to produce from this action and re-action of the two sciences, such a system of zoology, as might serve for an introduction and a guide in anatomical researches, and such a body of anatomy as might tend to develop and explain the zoological system.

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"I by no means, however, intended to carry this twofold labour into all the classes of the animal kingdom; the vertebrated animals naturally claimed a larger portion of my attention in consequence of their superior interest in every point of view. Among the invertebrated tribes, I have occupied myself more especially with the naked mollusca and the larger zoophytes. But the innumerable variations of shells and corals, the microscopic animals, and the other families which play no very apparent part on the theatre of life, or whose organization affords few facilities to the scalpel, did not require to be treated with similar minuteness of detail.

"It formed no part of my design to arrange the animated tribes according to gradations of relative superiority, nor do I conceive such a plan to be practicable. I do not believe that the mammalia and birds placed last, are the most imperfect of their class; still less do I