Rattler 



'.'■ ;.^ , .."jCopperhead 



American Museum of Natuial Historj 



KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION 



To some people all snakes look alike; but it is not safe to treat them all alike. With 

 a little biological knowledge (about snakes) one learns that it is safe to handle a 

 black or garden snake and to treat the rattler or the copperhead in a diflFerent way 



birds may look enough alike to confuse the ordinary observer; and one may 

 be fit to eat while the odier is decidedly not. It is important to distinguish. 

 Biology The V vast knowledge about plants and animals which people 

 must have had from earliest times was divided in small bits among die 

 many scattered tribes. Until modern times there was not even a name for 

 diis knowledge or study about living things. The word biology is from the 

 Greek bios ("life") and logos ("word" or "knowledge"), and means life- 

 knowledge, or life-science. It was first used in diis sense by a German 

 botanist (a student of plants) named Treviranus, who in 1802 published a 

 book with the title Biology ^ or a Philosophy of Living Nature. 



A 



