Preface.


In the following pages are grouped together anecdotes illustrative of
the peculiarities of different animals--mostly quadrupeds--their habits,
dispositions, intelligence, and affection. Nothing like a scientific
treatise of any of these animals has been attempted. I do not even give
a generic or specific history of one of them, except so far as they are
all casually and incidentally described in these anecdotes. Their
natural history, in detail, I leave for others, as the historian or
biographer of men, bent only on a record of the thoughts, words, and
acts of men, passes by the abstract details, however interesting they
may be, of human physiology, and the general characteristics of the
species. I have not aimed to introduce to the reader, in this volume,
all the animals belonging to the race of quadrupeds, who have a claim to
such a distinction. I have preferred rather to make a selection from the
great multitude, and to present such facts and anecdotes respecting
those selected as shall, while they interest and entertain the young
reader, tend to make him familiar with this branch of useful knowledge.

I ought, in justice to myself, to explain the reason why I have
restricted my anecdotes almost exclusively to animals belonging to the
race of quadrupeds. It is seldom wise, in my judgment, for an author to
define, very minutely, any plan he may have, to be developed in future
years--as so many circumstances may thwart that plan altogether, or very
materially modify it. Yet I may say, in this connection, that the
general plan I had marked out for myself, when I set about the task of