PREFACE 



IN preparing this text-book of General Zoology an 

 attempt has been made to meet the wants of teachers 

 who desire a treatment of the subject somewhat dif- 

 ferent from that contained in earlier editions of Pro- 

 fessor Orton's work, and to furnish a course of study 

 suited to the needs of the general student who wishes 

 to learn the principal facts and theories of zoology and 

 thus to obtain a fairly comprehensive idea of the sci- 

 ence. To this end it has seemed desirable so to 

 arrange a course of study that the student may gain 

 by ' personal observation concrete knowledge of the 

 structure and activities of animals, and, by so doing, 

 acquire some familiarity, slight perhaps, but neverthe- 

 less valuable, with the method of zoological investi- 

 gation ; that he may obtain also a knowledge of the 

 relationships of animals as expressed in an accepted 

 scheme of classification ; that he may, further, broaden 

 this knowledge by a comparison of animals in their 

 structural and physiological relationships ; and that, 

 finally, he be placed in position to understand the sig- 

 nificance of the more important theories of the science. 

 With these aims in view the text of Professor Orton's 

 " Comparative Zoology " has been revised and rear- 

 ranged as described below. 



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