Excerpt from Illustrated Natural History for Young People Although the number of works on Natural History might deter any new writer from venturing on so extensively handled a subject, there is at present no work of a really popular character in which accuracy of information and system atic arrangement are united with brevity and simplicity of treatment. All the best-known popular works on Natural History are liable to many obice tions, among which may be named a want of correct classification, the absence of explanations of the meanings and derivations of scientific words, the strange inaccuracy of many of the accompanying illustrations, and of the accounts of many animals. Nor do the conventional anecdotes chronicled in their pages evince that personal experience of the animal race which alone can repress romance and prevent inaccuracy. These deficiencies, it is hoped, are at all events partly sup plied in the present work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.