The subjects discussed in this volume are so connected that it is not a little difficult to decide how they can be best arranged.

The reasons which have led various authors to infer that our dogs have descended from more than one wild species are as follows.

The history of the Horse is lost in antiquity.

The breeds of the pig have recently been more closely studied, though much still remains to be done, than those of almost any other domesticated animal.

There are many breeds which transmit their characters more or less truly.

I have kept alive all the most distinct breeds, which I could procure in England or from the Continent; and have prepared skeletons of all.

As some naturalists may not be familiar with the chief breeds of the fowl, it will be advisable to give a condensed description of them.

I shall not enter into so much detail on the variability of cultivated plants, as in the case of domesticated animals.

I have briefly abstracted these opinions for the sake of showing those who have never attended to such subjects, how perplexed with doubt they are.

By this term I include all those sudden changes in structure or appearance which occasionally occur in full-grown plants in their flower-buds or leaf-buds.

With their slow, rhythmical cadence, they seem to be intoning litanies.

The children of my neighbourhood, impressed by its startling shape, call it "the Devilkin."

An eighteenth-century philosopher, Condillac, describes an imaginary statue, organised like a man, but with none of a man’s senses.

The maintenance of his industry, therefore, presents no sort of difficulty.

The wish came over me to see what dimensions the circular edifice would assume, if the Spider were given an unlimited supply.

Eumenes pomiformis is much more common and is comparatively indifferent to the nature of the foundation whereon she erects her cells.

Together with the population of harvesters there mingles another, less numerous, of mere drinkers, whose nesting-time has not yet begun.

Man has wild beast's blood in his veins.

Life's aid is now superfluous.

If the stem allows itself to be allured, why not the root?