By request of Professor Ainsworth Davis, the skilled translator of this
“handy-book” on “Agricultural Zoology,” I add some words of
introduction; and I have especial pleasure in so doing: not that any
observations of mine can add value to the work of the well-known author,
but because, having myself had the advantage for many years of
colleagueship, and important help in my own work from the assistance of
Dr. Ritzema Bos, I am well acquainted both with his extensive knowledge
and also his scrupulous care in observation, and I believe that this
abstract of his larger work, now given in a form in which it is
available for general use, will meet a great need.
We have long wanted a book, plain in wording, and of moderate size,
dealing with the wild animals or animal infestations generally which
occur in connection with farm life—a manual, in fact, which, whilst
suitable for the use of agricultural students and teachers, should at
the same time not be too technically scientific to be intelligible to
practical farmers or to general readers.
In the pages of the present volume a very serviceable amount of
information will be found to be embodied. So far as can be arranged in
the limited space the chief characteristics of the main divisions of the
animal kingdom are given, from the _Vertebrata_—including descriptions
of some of our most notable forms of what may be popularly described as
beasts, birds, and reptiles,—to the _Arthropoda_, including information
on a most serviceable amount of insect infestation; also regarding
Mites, Ticks, etc. These are followed by the _Vermes_, including, among
other families of the _Nematoda_, the eelworms which cause so much
injury to crop growth; and these are followed by the intestinal
tapeworms and the fluke.
The fourth sub-kingdom, that of _Mollusca_, includes, besides snails and
slugs, various kinds of shell-fish; and the lower sub-kingdoms—including
_Echinodermata_, which may be typified by starfishes and sea urchins,
the _Cœlenterata_, or Zoophytes, and the _Protozoa_—will be found to be
just entered on sufficiently to show their place in the scale.
The clear descriptions, made still more instructive by the numerous and
good figures, will speak for themselves to all readers; but I should
like to add a few lines to point out the serviceableness of a handbook
in which the reader may turn at pleasure to the history of any common
farm animal—as a weasel or a vole, a wood-pigeon or a pheasant, a
blindworm or a common frog. And, in regard to the insect infestations,
to which it will be seen more than a hundred pages of the book are
devoted, I can bear witness to the great amount of valuable information
which I constantly derive myself from the study of the writings of Dr.
Ritzema Bos on this subject; and I trust this little manual of
“Agricultural Zoology” may take the place in our farm and school
libraries which I believe it to be excellently fitted to fill.
ELEANOR A. ORMEROD,
_Late Consulting Entomologist of the Royal
Agricultural Society of England_.
TORRINGTON HOUSE, ST. ALBAN’S,
_May 24, 1894_.