2 ELEMENTARY ZOOLOGY. 



for the schools. In the first place, animals are very 

 useful in supplying the necessary conditions for our life. 

 They furnish food, clothing, labor, and protection. The 

 care of animals is one of the most extensive and im- 

 portant of human industries. This may be called the 

 economic phase of the subject. 



In the second place, many of the diseases which affect 

 man and the domestic animals are produced or intro- 

 duced by animals. From animals we get many of the 

 medicines with which we fight human disease. Further, 

 man himself is an animal. He is much like other animals 

 in many points of structure and activity. The study 

 of them helps man to see his own place in nature and 

 enables him to meet the various needs of his own life to 

 better advantage. This may be called the health phase 

 of the subject. 



Thirdly, it furnishes a field of wholesome interest 

 for the human mind, second to none in its inspiration. 

 A person who has studied animals and knows something 

 of their habits and instincts has an increased interest 

 in them whenever he finds them. Any excursion to 

 the woods, or even a stroll along a stream or across fields, 

 has its pleasure multiplied to one who knows something 

 of bees or butterflies or fishes or birds. A knowledge 

 of one or all of these will often take one out into nature, 

 which is always a wholesome and uplifting thing. This 

 is the cultural phase of Zoology. 



Finally, the study of Zoology, as a laboratory or field 

 subject and not merely through a text-book, furnishes 

 a form of mental training which is valuable for any 

 student, even if he were never called on to use the 

 knowledge. It teaches the student to depend for his 

 conclusions, in large part at least, on his own observe- 



