by William Swainson

“ In answer to several correspondents who have requested to know what book we can recommend, as giving a general and popular introduction to the natural arrangement of animals, we are obliged to confess that amid countless volumes of anecdotes, compilations, and methods, no such work has ever been undertaken. With the intention of supplying this deficiency, we have devoted the greatest portion of the last five years to an Encyclopedia of Zoology; wherein the science will be placed under a new and striking light; no less instructive to the general reader, than interesting to the learned. ”

“ In another year, we trust this work will be before the public. To that volume we must consequently refer the readers of this, whenever they wish to understand the full scope and influence of those novelties in natural arrangment, which are but slightly glanced at in the following descriptions. ”