GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



CHAPTER I 

 THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY 



Biology, a word compounded of two Greek nouns, /3tos (bios), 

 life, and \oyos (logos), discourse, is believed to have been used for 

 the first time as a scientific term by Gottfried Reinhold Tre- 

 viranus (1776-1837) in his work entitled "Biologie; oder die 

 Philosophie der lebenden Natur" (Biology; or the philosophy of 

 living nature), published between 1802 and 1805. It was 

 adopted by the French naturalist, Jean Baptiste Lamarck 

 (1744-1829), and has since spread into general use. Biology is 

 the science of organisms, the study of living things. Since living 

 things for the most part fall into two general categories — animals 

 and plants — the two major fields of biology are concerned with 

 these two natural groups. Zoology, from faov (zoon), animal, 

 and X070S (logos), discourse, deals with the animal side of biology, 

 while botany, from fioTavq (botane), plant, has to do with the 

 study of plants. 



In zoology a knowledge of the nature of life is sought by 

 studying animal organisms at rest and in various stages of 

 activity, under natural and controlled conditions. A knowledge 

 of the structure and function of the animal body is highly impor- 

 tant in reaching a scientific view of the nature of life because the 

 collective phenomena constituting what we call life are only 

 manifested in association with the material substance of the 

 organic body. Matter without life is common enough, but life 

 without matter is unknown to science. As a first step in seeking 

 a solution of the problem of life and explaining it in scientific 

 terms a careful study of the organic body in all of its structural 

 and functional details is necessary. 



Approach. — The common aim of all biological studies is an 

 understanding of the origin and nature of life. The biologist 



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