Excerpt from Text Book of Vertebrate Zoology
Within recent years the laboratory method has become the basis of instruction in every science. The student is expected to find out a certain number of fundamental facts directly from nature, but while this has in itself great value as a training in observation, the fullest benefit of the study is not obtained unless there be a comprehension of the bearings of the facts observed. Observation and uncorrellated facts do not make a science. Attention can be directed to the relations and significance of the facts ascertained in the laboratory by means of lectures, but a somewhat extended experience has shown that the average student needs something more than his lecture notes, at least when beginning any subject. The present volume is intended to supplement both lectures and laboratory work, and to place in concise form the more important facts and generalizations concerning the vertebrates. It is also hoped that it may have some value for students of medicine in explaining many peculiarities of the structure of man which seem meaningless unless viewed in the light of comparative morphology. When once their meaning is comprehended it is easy to remember them.
The first part of the volume is devoted to an outline of the morphology of vertebrates based upon embryology. This treatment has been adopted, since the author believes that in this way the bearings of the facts can be most clearly shown and most easily remembered. The remainder of the volume presents an outline of the classification of vertebrates, a subject which, in recent years, has been too much ignored in college work. Here the fossils are included as well as the recent forms, since the existing fauna must be studied in the light of the past. Numerous generic names have been mentioned without characterization; they have been inserted in order that the student may be able to ascertain the relationships of the forms he may find mentioned in collateral reading.
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