CHARLES WATERTON, ESQ. AUTHOR OF "WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. WITH AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR, Fifth Edition. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1844. PREFACE. SOME few years ago Mr. Loudon wrote to me, in order to draw my attention to his Magazine of Natural History; and he added in his letter, that he would feel obliged to me for any communication that I might send to him from time to time at my convenience. I was preparing to set out for the Continent at the time that I received Mr. Loudon's letter. On my return home from Franconia, I did not forget his application relative to the Magazine of Natural History. I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Loudon, for the very kind manner in which he has always spoken of the Wanderings, and recommended that work to the public. I had learned, by mere chance, that a professor in King's College had been applying to the Wanderings for information concerning the Humming-Bird; and that, having got what he wanted, he had coupled my name with an epithet* any thing but congenial to my feelings. Upon this, with no other sensation than that which a man experiences when he receives a pinch which he knows that he does not deserve, I took up the new edition of the Ornithological Dictionary, and having given it a few hearty shakes, by way of retaliation, I laid it down again upon the table, and bade it rest in peace. This will account to the reader for the appearance of an extract from the Ornithological Dictionary in the first page of the following Essays. Having had every possible opportunity of paying attention to the habits of the Vulture, during a long residence in the hottest parts of South America, where this bird is found in vast abundance, I was convinced, and am still convinced beyond all doubt whatever, that the Vulture possesses the faculty of scent in a most superior degree; and I made mention in the The eccentric Waterton. |