Excerpt from Biological Atlas: A Guide to the Practical Study of Plants and Animals It is now generally recognised that a certain acquaintance with actual specimens is necessary for the proper understanding of Plants and Animals. By the practical study of representative forms, exemplifying the leading modifications of plant and animal life, the student obtains a basis of distinctly observed fact with which to compare other forms, and round which to cluster the information derived from books. The University of London has given practical shape to this idea by selecting a series of common types which each candidate must be prepared to examine microscopically, to dissect and to describe. In this Atlas, which is intended to serve as a guide to, and not as a substitute for, practical work, drawings are given of the various points of importance exemplified by each of these types, to enable the student to make out the points for himself on the actual specimens. Experience both as students and teachers has taught us, that in this constant appeal to the object itself, the student is greatly assisted by clear and accurate drawings. In the triple alliance, as it may be called, of description, drawing, and object, is found the easiest, safest, and surest means of successful study. Not only is the Atlas a guide to practical work, but since it contains the results of that work in a permanent form, a glance at the drawings with their accompanying description will serve as a valuable refresher to the memory before going up for examination. Further, the Atlas may be used with any of the Text-books of Zoology or Botany in common use, such as those of Huxley, Nicholson, Macalister, Sachs, M'Nab, etc., because equivalent terms are noted in the text, and thus the language of the science is translated as it were into the different dialects. The drawings belonging to each form represent the leading features in the history of its life. The structure as a whole is first shown, then the details of the various parts by means of separate drawings, and finally so much of the history of its development as is likely to be required. In every case the types represented have been practically examined, and drawings made from nature. A number of the drawings are taken from dissections and microscopic preparations made in the Biological Laboratory of the Royal School of Mines, London. Others are copied from reliable sources whenever they give clearly and correctly the most instructive view of the object. In the development special care has been taken to give only such representations as were drawn by practised observers, e.g. the development of the Amœba is taken from Haeckel, and that of the Crayfish from Rathke. Drawings after nature are headed Figures, and Diagrams are occasionally introduced for explanatory purposes. The explanatory text arranges the information obtained from the drawing in a convenient form, explains briefly the nature of the object seen, states equivalent terms when the same thing is differently named by standard authors, gives the derivation of names when that throws light on their meaning, and accents them where there is any danger of wrong pronunciation, and finally sums up the distinctive characters in the form of a classification. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com