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HALF HOURS WITH
THE LOWER ANIMALS
PROTOZOANS, SPONGES, CORALS, SHELLS
INSECTS, AND CRUSTACEANS
BY
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER
AUTHOR OF "ELEMENTS OF ZOÖLOGY," "STORIES OF ANIMAL LIFE," "LIFE OF LOUIS AGASSIZ," ETC.
NEW YORK ᠅ CINCINNATI ᠅ CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
Copyright, 1905, by
CHARLES F. HOLDER.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London.
LOWER ANIMALS.
W. P. 2
PREFACE
At the present day education is not complete withoutdefinite courses of nature study. We are living in an ageof strenuous business life and activity, where the bestequipped students along the various lines secure the bestpositions. Time was when zoölogy, botany, and kindrednature studies were classed with music and the so-calleddead languages, and were taken up as incidentals or wereemployed in "mind training"; but to-day there are athousand branches of trade and commerce which requireknowledge that can be obtained only through naturestudy.
It is not necessary that the student, unless he intendsto be a teacher of science or a professional naturalist,should be able to pass examinations in the abstruse classificationof animals or delve into difficult anatomicalstudies. What the average student needs is a broad andgeneral idea of animal life, its great divisions, and notablythe relationship of the lower animals to man in an economicsense, the geographical distribution of animals, etc.It is vastly more important for the coming lumber merchantto know the relationship which forests bear to thewater supply, and to have a general idea of forestry andthe trees which make forests, than to be able to recite along formula of classification or analysis, of value only tothe advanced student or specialist. The future merchantwho is to deal in alpaca, leather, dye, skins, hair, boneproducts, shell, pearl, lac, animal food products, ivory,whalebone, guano, feathers, and countless other articlesderived from animals is but poorly equipped for the strug[4]glefor business supremacy if he is not prepared by naturestudy, nature readings, and other practical instructionalong these lines.
It is believed to-day by those who have given the subjectthe closest attention that the initial move of theteacher should be to call the attention of the child to thebeauties of nature, the works of the Infinite, and thusearly inculcate a habit of observation. The toys of thekindergarten should be fruits, flowers, shrubs, trees, pebbles,and vistas of mountains, hills, lakes, and streams,and nature study in some form should be continuous inschool life.
In the following readings the story of lower animal lifehas been presented on broad lines, divested of technicality,and at almost every step supplemented by forceful andexplanatory illustrations as ocular aids to the reader. Thesubject has been divested of dry detail, and I have introducednotes and incidents, the results of personal observationand investigation in various lands and seas, andhave give