The Elements of Animal Biology

This volume is intended as an introduction to the elements of animal biology for the use of students in the high school. The cut-and-dried method of exposition which is so commonly found in text-books and which so frequently deprives them of all traces of stimulating quality has been avoided so far as was deemed compatible with the presentation of such subject matter as a text-book should contain. Although the book would best fulfil its purpose if read in connection with laboratory work, I have not included directions for such work, partly because it would add considerably to the bulk of the volume, but chiefly because so many teachers nowadays prefer to make laboratory outlines of their own.

The order in which the main topics are treated is essentially like that which is followed in several of the best recent text-books. The general experience of teachers of biology has shown it to be eminently desirable that the student should possess a general knowledge of the animal kingdom as a preparation for the study of physiology. The section on the elements of physiology has therefore been placed after the part devoted to a survey of the principal groups of animals. Rather more than the usual amount of attention is given to the role of bacteria in causing disease, and to the way in which diseases are spread and how they may be avoided.