BIOLOGY 



The description and classification of plants and 

 animals has always formed one of the chief interests 

 of mankind, and it is significant that one of the 

 first intellectual performances ascribed to Adam 

 was an attempt at zoological nomenclature. Eve, 

 apparently, was not considered qualified to assist 

 at this important inauguration of the biological 

 sciences. It is a far cry from Adam, or the primitive 

 race of mankind which he may be supposed to typify, 

 to the present day, but his descendants have never 

 ceased to interest themselves in the same subject. 



With the gradual increase of our knowledge 

 our studies under this first main heading have 

 naturally subdivided themselves, until, at the pre- 

 sent day, we have come to recognise the follow- 

 ing branches, each regarded more or less as a 

 separate science by its own highly specialised 

 votaries. 



Morphology really indistinguishable from 

 Anatomy, though perhaps a little wider in its scope 

 deals with the form and structure of the organism, 

 and describes the mechanism upon which the life 

 of the organism depends. It has, of course, its 

 Zoological and its Botanical aspects, and because 

 of the immense number and variety of living things 

 is a subject of inexhaustible interest. Morpho- 

 logical studies can only bear their full fruits when 

 they are undertaken as Comparative Anatomy 

 from the evolutionary point of view. The purely 



119 



