INTRODUCTION. 



13 



or anatomy of birds ; Osteology, or the science of bones ; 

 and Odontography, or the natural history of teeth. 



Systematic Zoology is the classification or grouping of ani- 

 mals according to their structural and developmental rela- 

 tions. The systematic knowledge of the several classes, 

 as Insects, Reptiles, and Birds, has given rise to subordinate 

 sciences, like Entomology, Herpetology, or Ornithology. 1 * 



Distributive Zoology is the knowledge of the successive ap- 

 pearance of animals in the order of time (Paleontology in 

 part), and of the geographical and physical distribution of 

 animals, living or extinct, over the surface of the earth. 



Theoretical Zoology includes those provisional modes of 

 grouping facts, and interpreting them, which still stand 

 waiting at the gate of science. They may be true, but we 

 cannot say that they are true. The evidence is incomplete. 

 Such are the theories which attempt to explain the origin of 

 life and the origin of species. 



Suppose we wish to understand all about the Horse. Our 

 first object is to study its structure. The whole body is en- 

 closed within a hide, a skin covered with hair ; and if this 

 hide be taken off, we find a great mass of flesh or muscle, 

 the substance which, by its power of contraction, enables 

 the animal to move. On removing this, we have a series of 

 bones, bound together with ligaments, and forming the skel- 

 eton. Pursuing our researches, we find within this frame- 

 work two main cavities : one, beginning in the skull and 

 running through the spine, containing the brain and spinal 

 marrow ; the other, commencing with the mouth, contains 

 the gullet, stomach, intestines, and the rest of the apparatus 

 for digestion, and also the heart and lungs. Examinations 

 of this character would give us the Anatomy of the Horse, 

 or, more precisely, Hippotomy. The study of the bones 

 alone would be its Osteology ; the knowledge of the nerves 

 would belong to Neurotomy. If we examined, under the 

 microscope, the minute structure of the hair, skin, flesh, 

 blood, and bone, we would learn its Histology. The consid- 

 eration of the manifold changes undergone in developing 

 from the egg to the full-grown animal, would be the Embry- 



N umbers like this refer to the Notes at the end of the volume, 



