212 ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



LESSON 95. 



Animal Kingdom. 



Zo-o\'ogy, that branch of natural history which treats of animals. 

 Ver'tebre, (pronounced ver'te-bur,) a joint of tne spine. 



Few departments of knowledge are more interesting than 

 the natural history of animals, and the attention given to it 

 in the present age furnishes the best evidence that its claims 

 to notice begin to be fully estimated. In our own country the 

 inducements to its cultivation are peculiarly strong, for our 

 immense lakes, forests, and mountains, have as yet been but 

 imperfectly explored by naturalists, and the little that is 

 known of their productions leads to the belief, that they con- 

 tain abundance to encourage and reward the labours of 

 science. 



The study of Zoology is particularly advantageous to the 

 young, from its direct tendency to cultivate one of the most 

 useful habits of the mind, that of attentive observation of 

 things of common and daily occurrence. Its objects are 

 every where around us, — swimming in the waters, flying in 

 the aiif-, walking the earth, and burrowing beneath it. One 

 set provides our food and clothing, another purloins and de- 

 stroys them. Some attack, and others protect us. Their 

 forms are continually before our eyes, and their voices always 

 sounding in our ears. 



In order to treat clearly of the animal kingdom, it is ne 

 cessary to consider it according to some method of arrange- 

 ment, by which those apimals which most resemble one ano- 

 ther are connected together for the convenience of descrip- 

 tion. This arrangement is founded upon their form and 

 structure, and separates them into various divisions and sub- 

 divisions, according to their degree of similarity, and the 

 points in which their structures correspond. Such a system 

 of arrangement is called a classification of the animal king- 

 dom ; and an accurate acquaintance with the principles on 

 which it is founded will be of great assistance to the student 

 of natural history. 



All animals are divided in the first place into two grand 

 divisions, namely, into vertebral, embracing those that have 

 a spine, otvertebres, and into invertebral, comprehending all 



