This work is the first attempt to set before young readers some knowledge of certain loosely related but very modern topics, commonly grouped together under the name, General Physiology. It is, in short, an attempt to lead children of eight or ten, first to ask and then to answer, the question: What have I in common with other living things, and how do I differ from them? Incidentally, in addition, I have attempted to provide a foundation on which a perplexed but serious-minded parent can himself base an answer to several puzzling questions which all children ask—most especially to that most difficult of them all: By what process of becoming did I myself finally appear in this world?
NATURAL WONDERS
CONTENTS
Chap. I How The Chicken Gets Inside The Egg
Chap. II Some Other Sorts of Eggs
Chap. III Little Fishes in The Brook
Chap. IV Of Plants’ Eggs
Chap. V What Little Boys And Girls Are Made Of
Chap. VI More About Living Bricks
Chap. VII How Much Of Us Is Alive
Chap. VIII How We Grow
Chap. IX How We Grow Up
Chap. X How We Grow Old
Chap. XI Why We Grow At All
Chap. XII Things That Do Not Have To Be Learned
Chap. XIII Why We Like Certain Things
Chap. XIV Animals’ Games
Chap. XV Some Instincts Of Chicks And Kittens
Chap. XVI Certain Stupidities Of Animals
Chap. XVII How We Differ From The Animals
Chap. XVIII Something More About Speech And Thinking
Chap. XIX Why Most Of Us Are Right-Handed
Chap. XX Where We Do Our Thinking
Chap. XXI Where Some Of The Animals Do Their Thinking
Chap. XXII What Plants Know
Chap. XXIII What Plants Can Do
Chap. XXIV Some Plant-Like Doings Of Animals
Chap. XXV The Five Senses And The Other Five
Chap. XXVI Eyes
Chap. XXVII Seeing And Believing
Chap. XXVIII Some Other Senses
Chap. XXIX The Sight And Hearing Of Ants
Chap. XXX Ants’ Noses
Chap. XXXI Some Other Eyes And Ears
Chap. XXXII Having Senses And Using Them
Chap. XXXIII Seeing In The Mind’s Eye
Chap. XXXIV Ear Minds And Others
Chap. XXXV Living Automobiles
Chap. XXXVI Air And Fuel
Chap. XXXVII Men In Glass Boxes
Chap. XXXVIII Of Sugar And Other Poisons
Chap. XXXIX Snake Venoms And Others
Chap. XL Of Measles And Rusty Nails
Chap. XLI The Great War
Chap. XLII More About The Great War
Chap. XLIII Living Apothecary Shops
Chap. XLIV What Becomes Of The Tadpoles
Chap. XLV Nature’s Repair Shop
Chap. XLVI Little Monsters
Chap. XLVII How The Animals Keep Their Tools Sharp
Chap. XLVIII Why The Blood Is Salt
Chap. XLIX Horses’ Fingers
Chap. L How The Elephant Got His Trunk
Chap. LI Something Nobody Understands
