Vertebrate zoölogy

About this book

Secon and third paragraphs of Preface: The book is avowedly dynamic in tone, emphasizing the physiological, developmental, phylogenetic, and ecological aspects of vertebrates. Structural features must of course be dealt with extensively, but purely anatomical details are as a rule subordinated to physiologic and evolutionary considerations. The vertebrates are, moreover, viewed not merely as a group of animals belonging to the present, but, historically, as a very ancient assemblage of related forms, that arose from simple beginnings many millions of years ago and have passed through mahy vicissitudes in volved in the mighty world changes of ancient times. Hence more than the usual attention is given to earlier chapters in the ancestral history of the vertebrate classes, chapters that are often of more dramatic interest than those of the present and that give to the student a new conception of the significance of modern end-products of evolution which, in themselves, are often relatively unattratve and devoid of interest.