A One-Volume Natural History

Abstract

TO compress even a sketchy account of the leading types of existing animals into a small octavo volume of just over 560 pages, and that illustrated by a number of relatively large figures, is a task of stupendous difficulty. In the.present instance the author has increased the difficulty by. introducing-probably in accordance with what I believe to be a mistaken notion on the part of publishers a number of anecdotes, which merely waste space. This may perhaps account for the very imperfect diagnoses of niost of the groups and species, which appear in many cases insufficient for their identification by those who are not naturalists, and for whom alone the volume is intended. As is usual in works of this nature, vertebrates claim the lion's share of the volume, the lower groups being accorded only sixty-eight pages, which is, of course, an altogether inadequate proportion of space.