FOR PARENTS. THE HE design of this book can be stated in a few words, namely, to interest children in the study of natural history, and of physical and political geography. I. It would be hard to find a child indifferent to stories about animals. The number of books, both systematic and unsystematic, to which this fact has given rise is very large; but the enormous progress in zoological science has been fatal to the survival of most of them. Children of a prior generation had their curiosity about the brute creation sat isfied by White's Selborne and Bewick's Quadrupeds; and the former classic is even now reprinted in popular editions, with illustrations which may and do attract the young. But adults, and even scholars, alone can enjoy Selborne to the full; while not merely is the Quadrupeds out of print and difficult to procure, but its text is too antiquated to be usefully put before a child. Its incomparable illustrations de serve a perpetual lease of life. The first section of the present compilation, entitled "Animals," though written more than forty years ago, will, it is confidently believed, be as fresh and trustworthy forty years hence as it is now. The compiler has thought it an advantage to connect stories about a great variety of animals with one person, and he an observer of such credibility and authority that little if anything that was learned of him would have to be unlearned. Mr. Darwin is, of course, pre-eminently such an observer. On the other hand, by carefully connecting these stories also with the places on the earth's surface where the animals were studied, a correct notion will be had of the distribution of the animal kingdom, with a corresponding insight into the geography of the globe in its broadest sense. Finally, by placing these stories first in order, the attention of the youngest readers is assured. No artificial grouping has been attempted. II. Scarcely inferior in interest to tales of animals are accounts of strange peoples and customs, particularly of savage and barbarous life. The section entitled "Man," therefore, should not disappoint the youthful reader. III. Closely allied with the foregoing are the contents of the section entitled (for want of a better designation) “Geography," which consists partly of descriptions of cities, the habitations of man, partly of descriptions of rivers, mountains, valleys, plains, and other physical features of the coun tries visited by Mr. Darwin. IV. Finally, in the section styled "Nature" will be found some account of the grander terrestrial processes and phe nomena, with other matters which a strict classification might have placed in the preceding section, but which were intentionally reserved till the last, as being least easy to compre hend. But experience may show that, on the whole, this is far from being the least interesting of the four. From what has been said, it will be perceived that, if the attempted gradation has been successful, this book recommends itself to every member of a household, from the youngest to the oldest. A child may safely be left to read as far as he is interested, or as far as he can understand with facility, in the certainty that each year afterward he will push his explorations a little further, till the end has been reached and the whole is within his grasp. Meantime, parents can read aloud selected passages even in advance of the child's progress. Nor does the compiler seem to himself to overrate his collection of excerpts when he suggests its use as a graded reader in schools. Its capacity for rhetorical exercise will be found greater than might have been expected, and those who have been led to believe Mr. Darwin a materialist will discover here eloquent expression of human sympathies as broad as those immortalized by the old Roman comedian-"Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto." Some liberties have been taken with the original text. Notices of the same animal, or place, or nationality, or phe nomenon, in different parts of the narrative, have been gathered together and pieced where necessary; and (always after much hesitation) a more simple word or phrase has occasion; |