MANUAL OF ZOOLOGY 



INTRODUCTION 



Zoology, the branch of Natural History which deals with 

 animals, is one of the two subdivisions of the great science of 

 Biology, which takes cognizance of all organisms, or things 

 having -life, as distinguished from such lifeless natural objects 

 as rocks and minerals. The second of the two subdivisions 

 of Biology is Botany, which deals with plants. 



The subject-matter of Zoology, then, is furnished by the 

 animals which inhabit the land-surface, the air, and the 

 salt and fresh waters of the globe ; the aim of the science 

 is to find out all that can be known of these animals, 

 their structure, their habits, their mutual relationships, their 

 origin. 



The first step in the study of Zoology is the recognition 

 of the obvious fact that the innumerable individual animals 

 known to us may be grouped into what are called species, 

 the members of which resemble one another so closely that 

 to know one is to know all. The following example may 

 serve to give the reader a fairly accurate notion of what 

 zoologists understand by species, and of the method of 

 naming species which has been in use since the time of the 

 great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus. 



