Fig. 1.—The Scallop Shell , Pecten Opercularis (see page 107), slightly reduced in size. The larger shells are from Douglas, Isle of Man; the smaller shells are young specimens from LLandudno, North Wales....

WITH FORTY-SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK 1909 Copyright, 1902 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY All rights reserved...

Of the diagrams which illustrate this little volume, the majority were prepared by Miss E. C. Abbott (formerly Bathurst Scholar at Newnham College, Cambridge): the sketches were made from specimens in the South Kensington Museum of Natural History, which has kindly granted permission for their use. In addition to these, there are several figures that are taken from specimens in my possession, photographed by the publishers; two or three cuts are diagrammatic; and I owe to the kindness of Mr. J.

If the microscope had never been invented, the Story of Animal Life, as it is related by modern science, could never have been told. It is to the microscope that we owe our knowledge of innumerable little animals that are too small to be seen by the unassisted eye; and it is to the microscope that we owe the most important part of our knowledge about the bodies of larger animals, about the way in which they are built up, and the uses of their different parts. The earlier opticians who toiled, on

We all know what it is to adapt ourselves to circumstances. Suppose two lads, fresh from school, go out into the world to earn their living; one becomes a navvy and one a clerk. In five years' time these two young men will probably be very different in appearance from one another. The navvy will have developed his muscles; he will be broad-built, broad-chested, and strong. The clerk, on the other hand, will probably be comparatively weak and slim, his chest will not be so broad, his muscles will

Give a child a few handfuls of shells. Probably the first thing he will do with them is to sort out the various kinds and separate them from one another. Each will go into a little heap by itself; and next, our young friend will find names for them. These are Cap-shells and those Sword-shells; these Saucers and those Plates; these Yellow-shells and those Pink-shells—according as some special character or form or colour strikes his fancy. Now this is what zoologists have been doing with the anima

Some idea of the general characteristics of the Protozoa has already been given by the description of Amœba . We may now say something about special groups of the Protozoa, which have minor characteristics of their own. Amœba belongs to the class Rhizopoda, as has been already stated; but there are many of the Rhizopoda that greatly differ from Amœba in appearance. The possession of a shell or skeleton gives a special importance to several groups. For, as the reader has no doubt already learnt f

Next after the animals that consist of one cell only we have to consider the group of animals among which the lower kinds, at any rate, consist of a number of cells arranged in two layers. The representative of this group that the reader is most likely to meet with is the Sea-Anemone, the Coral animal probably he will be content to know from pictures. Everybody who has been accustomed to take a little interest in natural history, remembers the use of the old-fashioned term "Zoophyte." It was a n

Many who are familiar with the domestic sponge have never seen a sponge in a growing state, and would find it almost impossible to realise that a sponge may be a thing of beauty. And yet sponges are quite common on the rocky shores of our own country. It is true that they do not form large masses, like the sponges grown in warmer seas, which we import; but the smaller growths, massed together, often cover a considerable space of rock, and are conspicuous by their beautiful colouring. Some sponge

When the great naturalist, Linnæus, framed his classification of the animal kingdom, he included in the division Vermes or Worms, nearly everything except the vertebrates and insects. This assemblage would have been more correctly styled if instead of "Vermes" it had been described as "animals unsorted." Subsequent zoologists have by degrees picked out and separated from the Vermes first one group of animals and then another. But the process is still going on, and several of the groups which are

The above is a very descriptive name for a division which includes the Crabs and Lobsters and the Insects. Formerly they were included, along with the worms, under the name Annulosa, the Ringed Animals. They resemble these as possessing what is termed metameric symmetry, but they are distinguished from them as the Leggy Animals, a fact which is explained in the name, Arthropoda, joint-footed. Worms, as we have seen, have no true legs, but the Arthropods, theoretically, have a pair of legs to eve

The shell-fish are called Mollusca, the soft-bodied animals. It will easily be seen that this name was intended to point out the distinction between them and the Arthropoda, as regards the way in which the skin is protected. In the latter, as we have seen, the skin itself is hardened. In the shell-fish, the skin secretes a covering which lies outside it. Just as our skins pass out superfluous moisture to the outside, in the form of perspiration, so the skin of the mollusc continually passes to t

These were at one time included under the Mollusca, on account of their possession of a bivalve shell. This shell, however, is placed practically back and front of the animal, not to the right and left of it, as is the case with the shells of the bivalve Mollusca. The name, arm-footed, was given them in reference to a pair of special structures called the arms, bearing a large number of tentacles; it is now more frequently spoken of as the lophophore (see p. 122 ), and regarded as comparable to

We have already described the creatures which are popularly known as Corallines. Modern zoologists have long separated off from the Corallines of the older writers, a group of animals known as the Sea-Mats, which also are colonies made up of unit individuals. The common Sea-Mat, Flustra foliacea , may be picked up on almost any part of the English coast, being often torn up "by the roots" and washed in by the tide. When fresh it has a pleasant scent, which has been compared to that of Lemon Verb

Everybody knows the Star-fish and many people know the Sea-Urchin. An "urchin" is not a name for a naughty little boy, but the French ( oursin ) for a hedgehog. A Sea-Urchin is therefore a "Sea-Hedgehog," a name very appropriate for a creature armed with prickles. The Greek word echinos also means a hedgehog, so that the long name given to the group means simply hedgehog-skinned. The prickles attain their maximum in the Sea-Urchin, but they are well represented in the Star-fish, while in the Sea

The older zoologists used to speak of Vertebrata and Invertebrata as animals with a back-bone and animals without one, and everyone thought it a very natural way of dividing up the animal kingdom. It never occurred to anyone that it was possible to bridge the interval between them and find a link between the two. But now the Vertebrata have been compelled to give up their aristocratic pretensions, and own that they have risen from the ranks of the common people of the animal world; in other word

We have spoken of the Notochord as a structure which precedes the formation of the spinal column in Vertebrates. This needs a little more definite explanation. We all know that the spinal column of vertebrates is formed to protect the spinal cord. This protection is, however, an afterthought, so to speak, of the vertebrate structure; the lowest of all vertebrates is quite without it; and in the lower groups of fishes we may trace various steps of its formation. But in these cases where the spina

If we are to accept the opinion of Dr. Isaac Watts, man, as a moral being, is distinctly inferior to the "birds in their little nests," who live in harmony with one another; and, again, if we are to believe Solomon, he is by no means always the equal in intelligence of the Ant. Yet somehow it came as a shock to many who had been accustomed to revere both these authors, when they were asked, early in the latter half of the nineteenth century, to regard man, from a zoological point of view, as jus

It is one of the most well-worn of commonplace sayings, that "one half the world does not know how the other half lives." It is equally true that one half the world does not know how the other half works; and especially is this the case when one of the world's halves is its learned, and the other its unlearned, half. The average business man probably has an idea that the man of learning has a pretty easy time of it, and that his most arduous occupation is to enlighten an attentive world by readi