PREFACE 



Courses in field zoology usually lack the convenient background of 

 organization which one finds in the doctrine of evolution when presenting 

 the animal series from a structural standpoint. The need of some 

 logical and philosophical background for the organization of natural 

 history instruction into something more unified than haphazard dis- 

 cussions of such animals as were encountered in chance localities, was 

 keenly felt at the beginning of the author's experience as a teacher of 

 field zoology. Evolutionary background was tried, but failed and was 

 rejected; genetics and faunistics proved inadequate. Behavior as 

 presented and studied by zoologists was incomplete. Plant ecological 

 methods were, when unadapted, applicable only in part, while much 

 of physiology dealt with organs and internal processes. 



The organization of the data here presented is the result of many 

 attempts and failures which at times made the task seem hopeless. The 

 literature relating to this subject has been written almost exclusively 

 from points of view which are vejy different from the one here presented. 

 It is scattered, and the bibliography has never been brought together. 

 Accordingly its incorporation here has called for the expenditure of 

 much time, and often for reinterpretation, which is always fraught with 

 danger of error. The time consumed in working over the literature has 

 been great, but, for the reason stated, the amount covered has been rela- 

 tively small, and the literature in foreign languages has not received its 

 share of attention. Furthermore, since the bulletin is not written 

 primarily for investigators, much of the literature not in English has 

 been omitted from the Bibliography but some of it will be found in the 

 papers cited. To present such a subject as we have before us without 

 constant reference to the writings of such naturalists as Buffon, White, 

 Darwin, Wallace, Bates, Belt, Hudson, Romanes, Audubon, Brehm, 

 Fabre, Claude Bernard, Huber, Giard, Forel, Schmarda, Janet, Haase, 

 Mobius, Dahl, and others (350) seems at first thought quite unjustified, 

 but a complete study of the works of such men would be almost a life's 

 work in itself. The writer does not claim to have a detailed knowledge 

 of all the articles written by these men. He knows them only in part. 

 Their facts, in so far as they are known to him and relate to the questions 

 at hand, tend to support the main contentions. But the successful 

 organization of such a subject depends more upon the investigation of 



