Animals of Land and Sea 



BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE 



To be able to live in comfort a man must have a special 

 knowledge of some trade or profession; but to be able to live 

 at all he must have at least some acquaintance with the sub- 

 ject of biology. 



As commonly defined, biology is the study of life; but as 

 contemplated by the average individual it is the study of 

 disease and death and how to avoid them, and also how to 

 inflict them on other hostile living things with the minimum 

 of danger to himself. 



Everyone is familiar with the trapping and poisoning of 

 rats and mice, with the spraying of orchards to keep down 

 the insect pests; with the boiling and sealing of fruits and 

 vegetables to sterilize them; with the chlorinating of water 

 to eliminate dangerous "germs"; and with the taking of 

 quinine to cure malaria. All housewives recognize the clothes 

 moths and the "buffalo bugs," and no lady is so tender hearted 

 as to let one of these escape if she can catch it. Every country 

 boy avoids the poison ivy and the poison sumach, and the 

 nests of hornets, wasps and bees. All of this is but apphed 

 biology, mostly learned by the wasteful method of repeated 

 experience, with behind it a long history of loss by destruction 

 of crops and other property, and of discomfort, sickness and 

 death. 



Together with a greater or lesser number of biological facts 

 the average person acquires a corresponding number of bi- 

 ological myths, more or less fantastic and usually harmless, 

 but sometimes proving hurtful. 



