This is the first comprehensive treatment of a major order of arachnids featuring more than 6,000 species worldwide, familiar in North America as daddy-longlegs but known scientifically as the Opiliones, or harvestmen. The 25 authors provide a much-needed synthesis of what is currently known about these relatives of spiders, focusing on basic conceptual issues in systematics and evolutionary ecology, making comparisons with other well-studied arachnid groups, such as spiders and scorpions.
Broad in scope, the volume is aimed at raising relevant questions from a diversity of fields, indicating areas in which additional research is needed. The authors focus on both the unique attributes of harvestmen biology, as well as on biological studies conducted with harvestmen species that contribute to the understanding of behavior and evolutionary biology in general. By providing a broad taxonomic and ecological background for understanding this major arachnid group, the book should give field biologists worldwide the means to identify specimens and provide an invaluable reference for understanding harvestmen diversity and biology.
Inductive zoology.
In History of Animals Aristotle analyzes “differences”—in parts, activities, modes of life, and character—across the animal kingdom, in preparation for establishing their causes, which are the concern of his other zoological works. Over 500 species of animals are considered: shellfish, insects, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals—including human beings.
In Books I–IV, Aristotle gives a comparative survey of internal and external body parts, including tissues and fluids, and of sense faculties and voice. Books V–VI study reproductive methods, breeding habits, and embryogenesis as well as some secondary sex differences. In Books VII–IX, Aristotle examines differences among animals in feeding; in habitat, hibernation, migration; in enmities and sociability; in disposition (including differences related to gender) and intelligence. Here too he describes the human reproductive system, conception, pregnancy, and obstetrics. Book X establishes the female’s contribution to generation.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of History of Animals is in three volumes. A full index to all ten books is included in Volume Three.
Related Volumes:
Aristotle’s biological corpus includes not only History of Animals, but also Parts of Animals, Movement of Animals, Progression of Animals, Generation of Animals, and significant parts of On the Soul and Parva Naturalia. Aristotle’s general methodology—“first we must grasp the differences, then try to discover the causes” (HA 1.6)—is applied to the study of plants by his younger co-worker and heir to his school, Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants studies differences across the plant kingdom, while De Causis Plantarum studies their causes. In the later ancient world, both Pliny’s Natural History and Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals draw significantly on Aristotle’s biological work. The only work by a classical author at all comparable to Aristotle’s treatises on animals is Xenophon’s On Horses (included in Volume VII of the Loeb edition of Xenophon).
Inductive zoology.
In History of Animals Aristotle analyzes “differences”—in parts, activities, modes of life, and character—across the animal kingdom, in preparation for establishing their causes, which are the concern of his other zoological works. Over 500 species of animals are considered: shellfish, insects, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals—including human beings.
In Books I–IV, Aristotle gives a comparative survey of internal and external body parts, including tissues and fluids, and of sense faculties and voice. Books V–VI study reproductive methods, breeding habits, and embryogenesis as well as some secondary sex differences. In Books VII–IX, Aristotle examines differences among animals in feeding; in habitat, hibernation, migration; in enmities and sociability; in disposition (including differences related to gender) and intelligence. Here too he describes the human reproductive system, conception, pregnancy, and obstetrics. Book X establishes the female’s contribution to generation.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of History of Animals is in three volumes. A full index to all ten books is included in Volume Three.
Related Volumes:
Aristotle’s biological corpus includes not only History of Animals, but also Parts of Animals, Movement of Animals, Progression of Animals, Generation of Animals, and significant parts of On the Soul and Parva Naturalia. Aristotle’s general methodology—“first we must grasp the differences, then try to discover the causes” (HA 1.6)—is applied to the study of plants by his younger co-worker and heir to his school, Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants studies differences across the plant kingdom, while De Causis Plantarum studies their causes. In the later ancient world, both Pliny’s Natural History and Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals draw significantly on Aristotle’s biological work. The only work by a classical author at all comparable to Aristotle’s treatises on animals is Xenophon’s On Horses (included in Volume VII of the Loeb edition of Xenophon).
Inductive zoology.
In History of Animals Aristotle analyzes “differences”—in parts, activities, modes of life, and character—across the animal kingdom, in preparation for establishing their causes, which are the concern of his other zoological works. Over 500 species of animals are considered: shellfish, insects, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals—including human beings.
In Books I–IV, Aristotle gives a comparative survey of internal and external body parts, including tissues and fluids, and of sense faculties and voice. Books V–VI study reproductive methods, breeding habits, and embryogenesis as well as some secondary sex differences. In Books VII–IX, Aristotle examines differences among animals in feeding; in habitat, hibernation, migration; in enmities and sociability; in disposition (including differences related to gender) and intelligence. Here too he describes the human reproductive system, conception, pregnancy, and obstetrics. Book X establishes the female’s contribution to generation.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of History of Animals is in three volumes. A full index to all ten books is included in Volume Three.
Related Volumes:
Aristotle’s biological corpus includes not only History of Animals, but also Parts of Animals, Movement of Animals, Progression of Animals, Generation of Animals, and significant parts of On the Soul and Parva Naturalia. Aristotle’s general methodology—“first we must grasp the differences, then try to discover the causes” (HA 1.6)—is applied to the study of plants by his younger co-worker and heir to his school, Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants studies differences across the plant kingdom, while De Causis Plantarum studies their causes. In the later ancient world, both Pliny’s Natural History and Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals draw significantly on Aristotle’s biological work. The only work by a classical author at all comparable to Aristotle’s treatises on animals is Xenophon’s On Horses (included in Volume VII of the Loeb edition of Xenophon).
If not for a horse, would Alexander have been the Great? William, the Conqueror? Richard, the Lionhearted? If not for their awesome mounts, would the Spaniards have had their way with the New World? Would Paul Revere have spread the word? Would the West have been won?
It is hard to comprehend how far horse power has carried us, difficult to imagine, in our era of mechanical wizardry and speed, what role the horse has played in shaping human history. This is the challenge Juliet Clutton-Brock takes up in her book, a splendid blend of natural and social history that recounts the horse's story as it has figured in—and transfigured—our own.
By drawing on biological, archaeological, and historical evidence, Clutton-Brock describes the wild horse and the wild ass, from their widespread distribution at the end of the last Ice Age to their near extinction today. She shows how these beasts, once hunted for meat, were drafted for work and domesticated as humans began to grasp the possibilities of riding horseback. This discovery, with the speed, distance, and power it offered, transformed the course of history. This elegant tale of the horse and donkey, wonderfully written and handsomely illustrated, revives the true meaning of "horse power."
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