VI 
PEEFACE 
and permanent results in the study of animal life cannot be achieved by turning in the 
class-room a kaleidoscope filled with a chaotic mass of birds, butterflies, flowers, frogs 
and trees. Object-teaching is excellent, if rightly conducted. But the object can easily 
become a fetich; and all fetich-worship is dangerous to its devotees. Twenty-five years 
hence, some of the courses of study of the year 1903 will be regarded as educational curi- 
osities. Even the finest lobster or grasshopper should not be held so close to the eye 
that it obscures all the remainder of the animal kingdom. 
There is no royal road to a real acquaintance with living animals. Entertaining 
and. truthful story-books about quadrupeds and birds are excellent, in their way, but they 
do not, and cannot, go down to bed-rock, and lay foundations on which the pupil can 
build for aye. It has been decreed by Nature that he who will not work shall not know 
her. There is no process by which the secrets of Nature can be placed automatically in 
a giddy mind. 
The author maintains in this volume, and also out of it, that System is the only master- 
key by which the doors of Animate Nature can be unlocked. Even with boys and girls 
fifteen years of age, the foundations of natural history classification must not be ignored! 
Let them but begin right, and the structure is bound to rise. But beware of all chaotic 
fumbles of unrelated facts! 
This volume is intended as builder’s “filling” in the chasm that now exists between 
the technical “zoology” of the college and the “nature-study” lessons of the common 
schools. To-day, I am certain that many nature-study teachers dislike their work solely 
because they lack suitable sources of information. Surely it is unnecessary to suggest 
to any intelligent and sincere teacher that it is possible to utilize only a portion of this 
book, by selecting the subjects best adapted to each particular class, and passing over 
the others. 
Among the writers of manuals of zoology, it is now customary to begin with the 
lowest and least interesting forms of life, and work upward toward the highest. That 
will answer for the advanced student — If he chooses to have it so; but for middle- 
grade students and readers at home it is decidedly wrong. All elementary lessons in 
natural history should begin with Nature’s most important facts, and first bring forward 
her most interesting animals. To begin with the grasshopper, and struggle through a 
hundred dreary pages of anatomy and low forms of life, before reaching a creature of 
personality and intelligence, is too much for the patience of any active school-boy who 
wishes “to know about animals.” 
Anatomy is necessary to the advanced student ; but in a book for schools and the 
general reader, it is easily carried too far. As with human beings, the first thing to be 
learned about an animal is its place in Nature, and after that, its personality. It is only 
the scientific specialist who wishes to know first about its mandibular symphysis, the 
geography of its sutures, and the size of its auditory bullae. 
As the reader will observe, I have striven to accomplish two ends: (1) to make clear 
each animal’s place in the great system of Nature, and (2) to introduce the animal in such 
a manner as to enable the reader to become personally acquainted with it. The subjects 
chosen for introduction are not confined to any one section of our country, but represent 
all North America, and even lands beyond. For the purpose of avoiding wide gaps, 
several important foreign animals have been included. 
At this point I wish to record a grateful acknowledgment to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, for 
