G ECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS STORIES OF ANIMAL LIFE BY CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER, LL. D. NEW YORK: CINCINNATI: CHICAGO PREFACE. THESE stories of nature, derived mainly from personal experience with the various animal forms described, are presented in the hope that they may prove an incentive to the young student of zoölogy or animal life, either creating an interest in the subject or serving as supplementary reading to those who have followed a course in the field or the text-book. To undertake the study of natural history successfully, enthusiastic interest is necessary, and to arouse such an interest may be considered one of the possible good offices of the volume. The young student who is confronted day after day with a frog, a crab, or a shell, and requested to note its peculiarities of structure as a first lesson, sometimes may assume that natural history is, after all, very dry and uninteresting, when, had he even a faint conception of the wonderful ways and habits of the animals, he would eagerly embrace the opportunity for closer investigation. This volume is intended to present some of the remarkable phases of animal life, and it is hoped that the reader will find under the guise of stories many facts not generally available and covering a wide field. The illustrations have been designed to carry out still further the idea of the book, and to present at once the |