X INTRODUCTION. 



scientific to be intelligible to practical farmers or to 

 general readers. 



In the pages of the present volume a very service- 

 able amount of information will be found to be 

 embodied. So far as can be arranged in the limited 

 space the chief characteristics of the main divisions of 

 the animal kingdom are given, from the Vertebrata 

 — including descriptions of some of our most notable 

 forms of what may be popularly described as beasts, 

 birds, and reptiles, — to the Arthropoda, including in- 

 formation on a most serviceable amount of insect 

 infestation; also regarding Mites, Ticks, etc. These 

 are followed by the Vermes, including, among other 

 families of the Nematoda, the eelworms which cause 

 so much injury to crop growth ; and these are followed 

 by the intestinal tape-worms and the fluke. 



The fourth sub-kingdom, that of Mollusca, includes, 

 besides snails and slugs, various kinds of shell-fish ; and 

 the lower sub-kingdoms — including Echinodermata, 

 which may be typified by star -fishes and sea urchins, 

 the Gcelenterata, or Zoophytes, and the Protozoa — will 

 be found to be just entered on sufficiently to show 

 their place in the scale. 



The clear descriptions, made still more instructive by 

 the numerous and good figures, will speak for them- 

 selves to all readers ; but I should like to add a few 

 lines to point out the serviceableness of a handbook in 

 which the reader may turn at pleasure to the history 

 of any common farm animal — as a weasel or a vole, a 



