Excerpt from Wild Life of the World, Vol. 1: A Descriptive Survey of the Geographical Distribution of Animals Dutch descent that settled in Bedfordshire more than a century ago, died on the 15th of April 1915, aged 66, 'while this work was in the press. It had been long in preparation, and the sheets had received his final revision, so that it remains as he left it, with the exception of this preface. It is a general natural history in which the animals are described according to their geographical distribution, and the treatment of the subject on these lines was not new to him; in fact, his Geographical History of Mammals, published in 1896, is held by many to be his most original and important contribution to scientific literature. These volumes, however, have a wider scope. They are on a more popular basis, and deal with animal life of every kind, vertebrate and invertebrate, in all aspects throughout the world; and, of necessity, prominence is given to those groups which are of most importance in denoting the changes in the lands and seas during comparatively recent geological epochs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This 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.