It was the first biology textbook ever reviewed by Time and was also featured with illustrations in Life. Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and more than eighty other colleges and universities adopted it for use in courses. Since then, its clear explanations and ample illustrations have continued to introduce hundreds of thousands of students and general readers around the world to jellyfishes, corals, flatworms, squids, starfishes, spiders, grasshoppers, and the other invertebrates that make up ninety-seven percent of the animal kingdom. This new edition has been completely rewritten and redesigned, but it retains the same clarity and careful scholarship that have earned this book its continuing readership for half a century. It is even more lavishly illustrated than earlier editions, incorporating many new drawings and photographs. Informative, concise legends that form an integral part of the text accompany the illustrations. The text has been updated to include findings from recent research. Eschewing pure morphology, the authors use each group of animals to introduce one or more biological principles. In recent decades, courses and texts on invertebrate zoology at many universities have been available only for advanced biology majors specializing in this area. The Third Edition of Animals Without Backbones remains an ideal introduction to invertebrates for lower-level biology majors, nonmajors, students in paleontology and other related fields, junior college and advanced high school students, and the general reader who pursues the rewarding study of the natural world.

    Meanwhile, a little girl loses her innocence and her ability to talk with the forest creatures.

    At the time he began his work he was able to study a troop of baboons who had never known man. The four-year Boer War removed the settlers, and the tribe led a life undisturbed, with no fear of their modern and most devastating predators, the farmers. Marais was indeed fortunate to watch this animal society in an absolutely natural environment. What they did and how they organised their lives together, how they expressed themselves, and above all, their 'instinctive' reactions, made Marais draw conclusions on the development of animal and human psyche which caused debate in scientific circles.The keenness of his observations is magnificently matched by his compassionate prose. Even the weight of his conclusions is expressed in language so eloquently moving that the very style of the book makes it a treasure to read and possess.

     This is the first book about Orlando, the famous marmalade cat whose "eyes reminded you of twin green gooseberries." He and Grace, his beautiful Tabby wife, have three kittens - Tortoiseshell Pansy, White Blanche and Coal Black Tinkle. In this first story Orlando and his family go off for a camping holiday where the kittens learn to swim, paint pictures of the scenery and generally enjoy themselves in the countryside.