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                     [Illustration: frontispiece]




                             MRS. LOUDON’S
                       ENTERTAINING NATURALIST,
                                 BEING
                   POPULAR DESCRIPTIONS, TALES, AND
                               ANECDOTES

                             OF MORE THAN

                         FIVE HUNDRED ANIMALS.

                _A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED_.

                                  BY

                         W. S. DALLAS, F.L.S.

                                LONDON:
             BELL & DALDY, 6, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN,

                                 1867.


      LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
                          AND CHARING CROSS.





_PREFACE._


MRS. LOUDON’S _Entertaining Naturalist_ has been so deservedly popular
that the publishers, in preparing a new edition, have striven to render
it still more worthy of the reputation it has obtained. For this
purpose, it has been very thoroughly revised and enlarged by Mr. W. S.
Dallas, Member of the Zoological Society, and Curator of the Museum of
Natural History at York, and several illustrations have been added.

In its present form, it is not only a complete Popular Natural History
of an entertaining character, with an illustration of nearly every
animal mentioned, but its instructive introductions on the
Classification of Animals adapt it well for use as an elementary Manual
of the Natural History of the Animal Kingdom for the use of the Young.







INTRODUCTION.


ZOOLOGY is that branch of Natural History which treats of animals, and
embraces not only their structure and functions, their habits,
instincts, and utility, but their names and