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| Title | Romance of Animal Life |
| Author | Wood, Rev. J. G. |
| Asset Number | 00378 |
| Publisher | Isbister and Company Limited |
| ISBN | |
| Published Date | 1887 |
| Edition | 1 |
| Printing | 1 |
| Description | Vert tight full leather prize binding. Presented to Frederico C Caudwell for beinf 1st in class at Palmam Ferenti Hvnc Librvm DD HVIVS Scholae Gvbernatores. 1893.
Short chapters in natural history.
INTRODUCTION. THE present volume needs only a few words of explanation by way of introduction. From time to time, and for a space of nearly ten years, I have contributed a series of zoological essays to the magazines issued by Messrs. Isbister. They were written independently of each other as occasion demanded, and, being issued in different publications, have come under the notice of several distinct classes of readers. The publishers have decided to reissue these essays in book form, arranging them in such a manner that each volume shall be based upon some leading idea; that which characterises the present volume being the Romance of Animal Life. In a certain sense all natural history, especially zoology, must be romantic when the student is not content with mere external details, but tries to see below the surface. In the life-history of any animal, from the whale or elephant to the earth-worm, the gnat, the cockroach, or the clothes'-moth, there is a strong element of romance; and, as if to add to their interest, the biography of every being into which the spirit of life has been breathed, is inex- tricably bound up with that of man. See, for example, how absolutely dependent man is upon the earth-worm which he heedlessly treads under his feet, or cuts asunder with his spade. As the late Charles Darwin has shown us, man could not have found a place upon the earth had not the worm prepared the way for him. Last created of all beings, he could not have procured food but for the labours of the earth-worm, to which is due the whole of the soil upon which the trees and grasses find root. Is not this physical fact as romantic as any production of the novelist's brain? |
| Category | Life Science |
| Epoch | Victorian/Edwardian |
| Date Acquired | 04/05/2022 |
| Condition | (2) Very Good |
