BEASTS OF THE FIELD 19 



different types of animals. We say the essential differences 

 advisedly ; for there should be no sort of attempt to cram 

 children with the dry facts of the dissecting-room or the technical 

 details of the text-books. The broad facts must suffice, such as 

 will bring home to their minds the definite relationship which 

 animals and plants too for that matter bear to their external 

 surroundings : the significance of the shapes of animals and their 

 distinctive and varying methods of doing the same thing ; whether 

 this relates to motion, feeding, breathing, or avoiding enemies. 



But this knowledge is not to be imparted in the form of cut- 

 and-dried facts, to be committed to memory and produced by 

 suitable questions. Rather, children must be taught to absorb 

 these matters through the stimulus of a real interest. But if 

 they are not to unlearn much of what they have acquired, they 

 must be trained to think clearly. And this brings us back to our 

 point the slovenly use of words. To-day the word " Mammal " 

 has almost an uncouth sound to many, but only because it is 

 unfamiliar. Those who cannot overcome their objection, how- 

 ever, may substitute the word beast. But this is open to many 

 obvious objections. It is, however, far preferable to the misuse 

 of the term " animal/' for the reasons already pointed out. 



What, then, are " Mammals " ? 



In a word, " Mammals " are animals which nourish their 

 young by milk, and whose red blood-corpuscles have no nucleus 

 or " kernel." They form a group quite distinct from all other 

 animals. 



Of the many other characters which they share in common 

 it should be sufficient, for the purposes of this book, to give but 

 a few of the more important. Of these the bony framework, 

 or skeleton, may very properly be taken first. As this presents 

 a remarkable range of differences in structural details a feature 

 which is true of all the other parts of the body this framework 

 will be described only in general terms in this chapter. And it 

 will be the aim of later chapters to bring out the various ways 

 in which this skeleton, and the various other parts of the body 

 which clothe it, have become changed in accordance with what 

 we may briefly, if vaguely for the present, describe as the force 

 of circumstances. 



