Four feet, wings, and fins . a. Of course, added May, quickly. Yes, puss is a vertebrate; and now we must nextconsider into how many classes the vertebrates aredivided. To your pencils and papers now. Ver-tebrates, classes, four: Mammals ; Birds ; Rep-tiles ; Fishes. That is easy, said May. Well, then, to w^hich class do cats belong 1 Why—a cat isnt a bird, nor a reptile, nor a cat must be a mammal^ reasoned May. What is a mammal ? asked Grace. It thoundth like mamma, said Little Rose,puckering up her forehead. Yes, so it does, little love, and both words comefrom the same source. Mamma
Four feet, wings, and fins . a. Of course, added May, quickly. Yes, puss is a vertebrate; and now we must nextconsider into how many classes the vertebrates aredivided. To your pencils and papers now. Ver-tebrates, classes, four: Mammals ; Birds ; Rep-tiles ; Fishes. That is easy, said May. Well, then, to w^hich class do cats belong 1 Why—a cat isnt a bird, nor a reptile, nor a cat must be a mammal^ reasoned May. What is a mammal ? asked Grace. It thoundth like mamma, said Little Rose,puckering up her forehead. Yes, so it does, little love, and both words comefrom the same source. Mammal means breast. Allanimals who feed their little ones from their ownbosoms are m^,als. Pussy is a mammal becauseshe nurses her kitties. * I sawed her, said little Rose, and Mays henwath in the nest, too, laying eggs, and there wath fourkitties then. Theres only free now. Grace looked enquiringly from one to the other. O, she says that, May explained, because thefirst time she ever saw her little kittens they were in 22. « There Wath Four Kitties Then. THE FIRST SUBJECT—Felis-domestica, a great, big basket, which papa had fixed up for ahens nest. Wasnt it funny. Cousin, that the catshould go in there with her kittens ? And the funniestof all, the old hen wasnt scared a bit, but would jumpon her nest, beside the kittens, and lay an ^^^ everyday. Why, that is as good as my cat and pigeon story,said Grace. I had a pigeon once that used to nes-tle down in the straw every day beside the house catand her kittens ; and the cat seemed to actually enjoythe birds society. Now to your papers again: Mammals are divided principally into four sub-di-visions: Arckonts, Megasthenes, Mecrosthe7zes, andOoticoidsr Yow were come to something hard, said May. Archonts refer to man alone. We will havenothing more to do with that word; but, please re-member the other three. Megasthenes include thelarger and more powerful mammals; Mecrosthenes^the smaller; and Ooticoids, mammals which have apou
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1879
