SINCE the publication of my larger book, "The Horse Fair," many letters have been received from teachers and their scholars telling of the pleasure derived from the reading of it, and incidentally suggesting that much of its contents is directly in line with the courses of literary instruction pursued in our elementary schools. This suggestion has led me to col-lect certain of the stories into a smaller volume especially adapted for use as a school reading-book.

The eighteen stories in this ...

THE modest dimensions of this book are perhaps sufficient indication that it is not intended as an aid to the collector. There are about five hundred and fifty known species of spiders in the United Kingdom alone, and at least an equal number of pages would be needed to describe them.

There are certain days of the year when the immense wealth of spider industry going on all around us is revealed in a way calculated to strike even the least observant. We all know—and derive no peculiarly ple...

A few lines will suffice to explain why we have compiled the present volume, to what wants it responds, and what its sphere of usefulness may possibly embrace.

In our teaching of plastic anatomy, especially at the École des Beaux-Arts—where, for the past nine years, we have had the very great honour of supplementing the teaching of our distinguished master, Mathias Duval, after having been prosector for his course of lectures since 1881—it is our practice to give, as a complement to the ...

The book is divided into two sections the first are considered the sources of the ideas except those of organic evolution that dominate biology and the steps by which they have been molded into a unified science. The trine of Organic Evolution on account of its importance is reserved for special consideration in the second section.

This is of course merely a division of convenience since after its acceptance the doctrine of evolution has entered into all phases of biological progress.

The po...