A history of British quadrupeds, including the Cetacea / By Thomas Bell ... Illustrated by nearly 200 woodcuts.

  • Thomas Bell
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of British quadrupeds, including the Cetacea / By Thomas Bell ... Illustrated by nearly 200 woodcuts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    who are restricted by circumstances from engaging in the study of the higher departments of the science, of obtaining a rational and never-ceasing enjoyment; and to the young especially, of opening an exhaustless source of amusement, at once healthful to the body, and favourable to the elimina- tion of the best qualities of the heart and understanding. It is with these views that the series of works on British Zoology, of which the present volume forms a part, has been undertaken ; and it is confidently hoped that the united labours of several British Naturalists,—each illustrating the departments to which his attention has been most particularly directed,—will produce a Fauna of this country far more complete than could have emanated from the unaided talent and exertions of an individual. The classification which has been followed in the present work is such as appeared to the author the best adapted for the object immediately in view, although far from being un- objectionable if applied to the arrangement of the whole class. In the nomenclature of the families, he has adopted the name of the typical genus of each, with the Greek patronymic ter- mination ;—a rule which was first introduced by a society of Naturalists with whom he passed some of the happiest hours of his life, and which has now been employed for some years past by most of the Zoologists of this country. This attempt to establish a general rule of zoological nomenclature, although it has been much, and in some cases somewhat ludi- crously misapplied, would, if correctly and consistently carried out, be productive of great accuracy and discrimination in the expression of the relative value of the different groups. In the class of animals of which the present work professes to treat, although the British Islands are deficient in a few of the most important groups, yet most of the orders and many of the most illustrative families are represented by species either strictly indigenous, naturalised, or reduced to a state of domestication.
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