PREFACE. 



Instructors in biology very generally direct the laboratory work 

 by means of written or printed guides placed in the hands of the 

 student. These are sometimes hastily prepared for the occasion, 

 and come from the mimeograph or typewriter abounding in misprints 

 and various other errors. 



If more carefully elaborated, the sheets furnished the student at 

 various times are not uniform in size and will not fit in with any system 

 of notes which he may be keeping. 



The Loose Leaf guides are the results of several years' experience 

 in directing zoological work in high school and college laboratories. 

 The sheets outlining the work on each type of animal are separate, so 

 that they may be incorporated with the student's drawings and notes 

 on that particular type. The recorded information on the subject 

 is thus collected together, not only simplifying at the time the work of 

 studying the specimen, taking notes, and indexing the drawings, 

 but making future reference to the records an easy matter. Then, too, 

 the laboratory guides being thus bound in with the student's notes, 

 do not become scattered or lost. 



The instructor who has mastered his subject only fairly well might 

 easily dispense with the use of a regular text book of zoology in con- 

 nection with these guides. We should study things, not about things. 

 Collateral reading assigned by the instructor and simple lectures or 

 talks on various phases of the particular type of animal life in hand 

 will, however, stimulate and encourage the student to investigation 

 on his own account. The field, the brook, the woods have attractions 

 more for the average student of zoology than any text book on the 

 subject. But he must be so directed or trained that he will learn to 

 see what he looks at and interpret correctly what he sees. A biologi- 

 cal survey classes in botany cooperating of a small selected area is 

 an excellent plan for developing nature students. As a matter of course, 

 aquaria and terraria ought to form part of the equipment of every 

 zoological laboratory. 







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