PREFACE. 5 



but to teach them about the clover-blossom or the snail 

 that lies coiled beneath it — the life which they every 

 day trample beneath their feet, and which is such a mys- 

 terious foreshadowing of their own life — that is all too 

 hard. Biology is too big a subject for boys and girls ! 



As regards technical terms, I use them; but in 

 every instance the literal meaning is also given, or a 

 paraphrase in language easily understood, together 

 with the scientific name in small capitals, so as to 

 cultivate a pictorial memory — an essential aid to scien- 

 tific study. 



The scope of this volume is this: beginning with 

 the lowest form of vegetable, a characteristic sample 

 of the typical forms of life as far as the vertebrate 

 animals is analyzed (for classification, see closing chap- 

 ter). At some future time, if this attempt be a suc- 

 cess, I intend to undertake a similar work upon the 

 Vertebratce. 



Although suggestions are drawn from unscientific 

 sources, even nursery rhymes and stories being wor- 

 ried into witnessing for some of the grandest truths in 

 Nature, yet the subject-matter and the analyses are 

 such that they may be taken as guides to real labora- 



