Excerpt from The Natural History of Animals, Vol. 1: The Animal Life of the World in Its Various Aspects and RelationsThe Introduction fully explains the plan of the work, and the lines which have been adopted in writing it, and books to which the Author is specially indebted are either mentioned in the text, or included in a special list at the end. It is both mentally and physically impossible for one zoologist to know at first hand more than a small part of his subject, and for this reason full quotations, in preference to mere paraphrases, have been taken from the writings of many distinguished specialists, the sources in such cases being always indicated.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis 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.