APPENDIX. 



GENERAL ADVICE TO THE STUDENT. 



We would at the outset impress upon the student- 

 especially the isolated worker, for whom these notes are 

 more particularly written the importance of some pre- 

 liminary reading before dissection is undertaken. No one 

 would dream of attempting to explore a deserted city with- 

 out some previous study of maps and guide-books, but we 

 find again and again students undertaking to explore the 

 complicated anatomy of a vertebrated animal without the 

 slightest, or only the slightest, preparatory reading. This is 

 entirely a mistake. A student should be familiar with the 

 nomenclature of the structures he contemplates examining, 

 he should have some idea of their mutual relations and 

 functions, or his attention will inevitably be diverted by the 

 difficulty of new names and physiological questionings to the 

 neglect of his dissection, and that careful observation of 

 form and mutual position which is the essential object of 

 dissection. On the other hand, it is equally necessary 

 perhaps more so to warn students against the bookish 

 fallacy, and to assure them of the absolute impossibility of 

 realizing biological facts from reading alone. Practical 

 work can alone confirm and complete the knowledge to 

 which the text-book is the guide. In scientific teaching it 

 may sometimes be convenient for the thought to precede 

 the thing, but until the thing has been dealt with the 

 knowledge gained is an unsatisfactory and unstable 

 possession. 



How TO READ. 



Our first caution to the reader is to avoid the common 

 and easy delusion that he really understands some state- 



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