William Stebbins Barnard

“ Pure water is not inhabited by organisms; on the contrary, stagnant water or impure water alone affords them subsistence. They hasten the destruction of dead animal and vegetable matters the water may contain, causing for the time being an infusion or fermentation, which results finally in the purification of the liquid in question.
The bodily corruption in diseases, whether contagious or not, is not caused alone by the swarms of infesting organisms associated therewith, but is simply their cause, a sustenance for them, itself making their existence and multiplication possible. ”

“ In Europe, Asia, and Africa, not a single marsupial exists. Our only species, Didelphys Virginiana the opossum, is found from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, and from ocean to ocean; but it has several relatives in South America, where about twenty species exist, such as the sarigue, shupati, and carigueya, of Brazil. In some of these the pouch is rudimentary, affording little protection to the young, which hang fast to the nipples until able to jump about, and then are carried on the back of the female, where they cling to her wool and gain additional support by coiling their tails around hers. ”

“ School facts and deductive sciences are means instrumental to business success; but they are not in themselves sufficient to carry on the work of mental development. But, even where natural science is taught in public schools, it is generally for a short time, late in the course, and by the old method of memorizing or parroting from books instead of making it a constant study of concrete objects, to which some time should be devoted on two or more days of each week throughout the student's whole career. ”

“ To the first of these man himself belongs, and it is now admitted that the best and most practical way to acquire a knowledge of human physiology, anatomy, and development, is by studying the comparative physiology, anatomy, and embryology of vertebrates. Also, because our domestic animals belong to this group, with many of our friends among the birds, snakes, lizards, salamanders, toads, and fishes, it deserves special study. To the second branch belong the crab-like animals, the myriad-legged forms, those which are spider-like, and true insects, which are the highest of their branch. ”

“ But not alone because of their stupendous effects are these invisible creatures entitled to our attention. It is in the simplest and smallest creatures that we find the alphabet of the science of life. The rudimentary objects of biology are invisible ”

“ Of the one hundred and ten species of those with perforated shells now living in the Atlantic chalk-ooze, the number of species common to it and the various geological formations in England is estimated as fifty-three with the crag, twenty-eight with the London clay, nineteen with the chalk, seven with the Rhsetic and Upper Trias, one with the Permian, and one with the Carboniferous. The survival of so many species in the group is a striking testimony against the theory that the species of each geological division of time ended in a totally demolishing and exterminating catastrophe. ”

“ This learning of nature from books alone is an impossibility, a deception, and a fraud, like the teacher's "can't for want of time and specimens," when the crops are suffering from insects which swarm everywhere, and the chief amusements of the boys are to go hunting and fishing.
Teachers should utilize what they can obtain by the help of students. ”

“ The young opossums are born as almost helpless little bodies, with mouth and fore-limbs well developed. The transfer of the embryo from the uterus to the pouch has not been observed, but this must be done as with the kangaroo, where it is believed that the mother takes each new-born embryo between her lips and places it upon one of the nipples, which it grasps firm with its mouth and the claws of its fore-feet. Immediately after birth, the young opossums are found hanging upon the mammary glands fixed in the above manner, each with the hind part of its body free and pendant. ”

“ The only way to bring practical entomology to agricultural minds generally, to the class with whom it is of greatest importance, is to require that it be taught in all public schools. It is a kind of knowledge which the young country student grasps easily and successfully when deprived of its unessential technicalities. ”

“ The comparison of man's foot with the opossum's was unfortunate; the right idea was expressed, but a wrong illustration chosen. The fact is, the opossum is pedimanous, having an opposable thumb, as was stated in a paper presented at the same time with the above. It has a rather highly-differentiated foot, whereas the contrary was supposed.
Few, if any, animals outside the groups of the quadrumana and the opossum family have the parts of their muscles so specialized that one toe can be used without moving all the others. ”

“ The daytime it spends in slothful idleness, but prowls about nocturnally seeking for food. Walking or slowly ambling at an awkward gait, it proceeds from place to place, usually following the borders of streams and ponds, often wading where the water is shallow. ”

“ The order of living marsupials presents remarkable diversity of structure and habits, containing herbivorous, insectivorous, and carnivorous species; yet we find all these traits combined in one and the same species, the opossum. It is probable that, by adaptation to similar modes of life, the marsupials have developed groups parallel to those of the placental mammals. However, it is certain the Quadrumana seem represented by the Phalangers, the Carnivora by the Dasyuri, Insectivora by the Phascogales, Ruminantia by the kangaroos, and Edentata by the Monotremes. ”

“ There is not only a profound scientific interest in the realm of microscopic life, which is every day becoming deeper as its organisms are viewed from the standpoint of evolution, but they have a significance in the economy of nature, a usefulness to man, and a value in the industrial arts, of which but few glimpses have as yet been popularly obtained. To the inquiry, Of what service are those swarms of infinitesimal objects which are revealed only through the microscope? ”

“ I knew a Western teacher who formed a class of students every year in some study of which he knew little or nothing, in order that he himself might be profited by learning with them. Those who teach other things well may venture to strike out boldly and improve themselves in some part of natural history of which they were ignorant at the outset ”

“ The microscopic animals of the Cretaceous may be individually insignificant, but en masse they are certainly far more important than such larger fossils as the mosasaurus, pterodactylus, iguanodon, ichthyosaurus, and species of large fossil turtles of the same age, or the elephant-like mastodons and ponderous, sloth-like megatheriums of more modern date. ”

“ With the cultivation of extensive areas, the destruction of beneficial insects, of birds and reptiles, and their forest-homes, with the introduction of new food plants, and adaptive changes in the food-habits of insects, we favor the multiplication of our native pests, while to these we have added through commerce all the foreign marauders which can be brought with imported produce, and without the enemies which retard their increase in their own countries. ”

“ At least thirty species of our most objectionable insects are derived from the Old World, among which are the dreaded currant-worm, the cabbage-worm, the cabbage-fly, the Hessian fly, the wheat-midge, the bee-moth, the apple-worm, the cabbage-lice, grain-weevils, the house-fly, the European cockroach, carpet and clothes moths and bugs, the asparagus-beetle, and the clover beetle. ”

“ No field is better calculated to improve the inductive functions than that of zoölogy—the highest department of biology—while some of its divisions are to he highly recommended on account of their great economic importance. The agriculturist has to deal directly and practically with only the two highest branches of the animal kingdom, with the jointed animals known as vertebrates and arthropods. ”

“ Although marsupial animals are so exceedingly rare in other parts of the world, the kangaroos and almost all of the great variety of animals of Australia belong to this group. Thus it appears they are mostly tropical.
The earliest fossil mammals known appear to be marsupials allied to the opossum. In the bone-caverns of Brazil quantities of bones of opossums, such as live in that country now or similar, are found. One species of Didelphys was found fossil in the Paris Basin, of Eocene formation. ”

“ An animal born so premature as the little opossum must necessarily perish from exposure, were it not for the curious provision for its protection and the constant supply of milk afforded in the pouch of the female. The internal cavity of the adult female marsupium seems to be formed by an infolding of the external skin. ”

“ Besides the general course in zoölogy, there are special courses pertaining to vertebrates and insects. In the anatomical department, the special anatomy of the domestic cat is worked up as a standard of comparison, and is followed by the anatomy of examples of the leading groups and of the domestic animals, while in the entomological department special attention is devoted to those insects which are most injurious or beneficial, or otherwise, of unusual interest. ”

“ Soon each toe has one joint, and the inner toe becomes set off from the rest. Later, the two longer fingers show two joints, and, finally, the inner toe becomes a thumb with two joints, while each finger has three; and now the hind-foot closely resembles the hand of the higher quadrumana and man, while its fore-feet, much earlier developed, remain more animal-like, the great-toe being set off not so far from the others, but the fingers quite long. The hind-limbs are primarily much shorter than the front, but, developing faster, soon equal and afterward outgrow the others. ”

“ All educational institutions, and public schools especially, should be required to teach vertebrate and entomological zoölogy in a thorough manner, while the general characteristics of the other branches and a few of their more common and curious representatives should be briefly studied in addition. ”

“ IT is the office of education to direct the mental growth of the individual; and this should be by a developing and not by a cramming process. In our present system there is too much burdening of the verbal memory, and too little of what may be called the objective memory, resulting from the exercise of the mind upon actual objects. What we want is more observation, more inductive reasoning, judgment, understanding—in short, intelligent thinking ”

“ With few exceptions, microscopic beings possess the power of moving from place to place, although many enjoy this freedom for only a part of their lifetime, and then become adherent or attached to foreign bodies for the rest of their existence. But even with the most rapid, free swimming forms, so little distance can be accomplished in their almost momentary lives, that their voluntary progressions can have little or no effect on their geographical distribution. ”

“ Ordinary courses of study do not include subjects upon which these various mental activities can be sufficiently employed. They consist too much in learning rules pertaining to language and mathematics and their deductive applications, and too little in the objective investigation of things, the making of generalizations and the investigation of laws. ”

“ The animal is usually sullen, stupid, and slow, but if attacked assumes a terribly fierce attitude, snarls, utters a kind of hiss and low growl, and will often bite ferociously, though at the first blow wall usually feign death, and no amount of torture will make it revive or show a sign of suffering, but when beaten and left for dead it will often crawl away as soon as its enemy is gone. ”

“ We have seen how organs exactly alike in the beginning may differentiate before our eyes into parts altogether dissimilar, just as individual animals of a like kind may have their progeny gradually modified from generation to generation, until, finally, different races are produced from a common ancestry. The adult opossum has rather slender and delicate limbs and fingers, and a long, slender, pointed nose ”

“ At birth, the nostrils are large, with a high rim; but the eyes are covered beneath the skin, and the ears are represented by small elevations on the sides of the head, while the lips have a remarkable development and peculiar covering, which reminds us of the first embryonic traces of the duck-like bill of ornithorhynchus. ”

“ Multiplying in myriads, and being too small and weak to resist the elements, they are constantly swept about in currents of water or air, and in the moisture on the surfaces of moving animals, etc. Well-authenticated observations show that with the evaporation of ponds and other waters containing swarms of these little animals, many encyst themselves within delicate capsules formed of an exudation, which hardens the body-surface ”

“ They are the most abundant of all organisms, their number of species exceeding that of all other animals, with all the species of plants taken together. Every terrestrial plant and animal has its insect-pests, and these in turn have insectean destroyers, which are indirectly friends to the animal or plant. ”

“ This pair of little pits may be regarded as the beginning of the bilateral pocket so largely developed in some marsupials. If we can imagine that these depressions have become so deep as to envelop not only the nose of the young, but also its whole body, we can understand the evolution of a marsupial from something lower. ”

“ In autumn, the opossums become excessively fat, and are then prized for food in the Southern States, especially by the negroes, whose fondness for hunting them and eating their flesh has already exterminated them from many localities where they abounded plentifully before. ”