PREFACE 



I HAVE here attempted to help those naturalists, 

 especially those young naturalists, who take delight 

 in observing the structure and habits of living animals. 

 It has also been my hope that I might do something 

 to revive an interest in the writings of certain old 

 zoologists — Swammerdam, Reaumur, Lyonnet, and 

 De Geer — who are at present unjustly neglected; I 

 have tried to carry on as well as to popularise their 

 work. It would be much if I could persuade some 

 few working naturalists to lay aside their technical 

 lists and records of parish distribution, and study the 

 works of Nature with open eyes, seeking abov^e all 

 things to know more of life in its infinitely varied 

 forms. 



Some passages in this book, if taken alone and read 

 hastily, may appear to disparage systematic Zoology. 

 This is far from my intention. No one can study the 

 great naturalists of the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries without feeling how seriously their work is 

 impaired by the defective systems of the time. It is 



