The commencement of this work was necessarily preceded by a few observations upon the nature and object of the undertaking: those observations are no less appropriate on the present occasion than the former, and for this reason we shall again advert to them in restating the intention the author has in view. The NATURALIST’S REPOSITORY, or MONTHLY MISCELLANY OF EXOTIC NATURAL HISTORY, is designed to comprehend in the most commodious form, a miscellaneous assemblage of elegantly coloured plates, with appropriate scientific and general descriptions of the most curious, scarce, and beautiful productions of nature that have been recently discovered in various parts of the world or may hereafter occur to the notice of the author; and more especially of such novelties as from their extreme rarity remain entirely undescribed, or which have not been duly noticed by any preceding Naturalist. Most readers, it is presumed, will be aware that the labours of the authors life, during a course of many years have been directed to the pursuits of natural science: labours not confined to any one particular branch or department of the varied face of nature, but extending generally to the whole. The endeavours of the author to elucidate the Natural History of the British Isles are sufficiently known from the various extensive works which have been produced by him during the course of the last thirty years, and the magnitude which those works have at length acquired in the progressive course of publication that had been adopted, is the best criterion of the approbation that has attended them. But it is not within the views of the author in this place to expatiate upon a subject which might be deemed irrelevant, the works alluded to being devoted solely to the productions of our native country, while the avowed object of the present undertaking is to comprehend a selection of those only which are peculiar to foreign, and with few exceptions, to extra European climates. The chief motive of the author in adverting to those works, is to point out a style and mode of execution for the present undertaking, which, from the very extensive patronage those former labours of the author have experienced, may be considered applicable in a very peculiar degree to every purpose of correct elucidation, and as one most likely to ensure by its elegance and perfection that same proportion of general approbation which the other productions of the author have obtained.