Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found: A Book of Zoology for Boys

Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7
Word count
265K words
Chapters
27

Tags

Children's Literature Natural SciencesEnglish Originals Animal WorldNatural HistoryLiving CreaturesScience EnlightenmentNature ObservationKnowledge EnlightenmentPlayful LearningIllustrated GuideField ObservationYouth Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found: A Book of Zoology for Boys by Mayne ReidAuthor: Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883,Language: English, Class: QL: Science: Zoology, Release Date: Nov 21, 2007

Editor's review

This is an introductory zoology book written by Mayne Reid for young readers, centered on the morphological features and geographical distribution of quadrupeds, presenting classification knowledge within vivid natural scenes. Its value lies not in systematic, rigorous textbook-style organization, but in inspiring children's interest in the wild world through natural history essays: first recognizing what animals look like, then asking where they are found. The observational perspective in the book bears the marks of nineteenth-century natural history writing, with straightforward language and strong narrative quality, suitable as transitional material for popular science reading. When reading, one may treat it as a window, looking at the animals themselves as well as at how people of that era introduced nature to children. As the original book is a public-domain English eBook, Chinese readers better suited to it are adolescents with some English reading ability and an interest in natural history, or adults who wish to understand early popular science writing styles.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First read through the table of contents, then select chapters on animal categories of interest and read selectively rather than from beginning to end.
  2. When encountering unfamiliar animal names, verify modern translations and distributions along the way, building your own comparison notes.
  3. After finishing each chapter, retell in your own words the animal's appearance and habitat to check your understanding.
  4. Read alongside modern animal popular science books to appreciate the changes in natural history writing perspectives over more than a century.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no English foundation at all? Not very suitable. This is a public-domain English eBook; although the original narration is straightforward, it still requires a certain vocabulary and ability to understand long sentences. Readers with no English foundation at all will find it rather difficult, and are advised to use a dictionary first or choose an edition with Chinese annotations.
Is the zoological knowledge in the book still valid today? Partially valid. The basic descriptions of animal appearance and distribution in the book still have reference value, but the classification system and some geographical information carry the limitations of the nineteenth century and should not be used as a modern zoology textbook; it is best read in comparison with modern materials.
Is this book a storybook or a popular science book? It is a zoology popular science book for young readers, mainly introducing what quadrupeds are and where they are distributed, with a natural history essay flavor in its narration. It is not a collection of fictional stories, and one should read it with popular science expectations.

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About the author

Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883 Author

Mayne Reid (1818–1883) was a prolific nineteenth-century writer of English-language adventure fiction. Details of his life are limited in publicly available sources; what is relatively reliable is that he was born in 1818 and died in 1883. The library holds 57 of his works, commonly classified as inspirational coming-of-age stories, which shows that his writing centered on adventure and growth for young readers. Representative works include The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas, set on the Texas frontier, along with Ran Away to Sea, The Forest Exiles, The Desert Home, The Maroon, The Quadroon, and The Land of Fire, which carry readers to the Amazon jungle, the wilderness, the sea, and the Far West. His novels feature tight plots and wide-open settings, often depicting separated families, survival in foreign lands, and youthful adventure; they were widely read in the English-speaking world and have had some influence on later adventure literature.