Produced by Jessica Rupp A Child's Primer Of Natural History By Oliver Herford with Pictures by the Author Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1899 Copyright 1899, by Oliver Herford CONTENTS A Seal The Giraffe The Yak A Whale The Leopard The Sloth The Elephant The Pig-Pen Some Geese The Ant An Arctic Hare The Wolf An Ostrich The Hippopotamus The Fly The Mongoos The Platypus The Chimpanzee A Mole The Rhinoceros A Penguin The Cat The Dog A Chameleon A Seal. SEE, chil-dren, the Fur-bear-ing Seal; Ob-serve his mis-di-rect-ed zeal: He dines with most ab-ste-mi-ous care On Fish, Ice Water and Fresh Air A-void-ing cond-i-ments or spice, For fear his fur should not be nice And fine and smooth and soft and meet For Broad-way or for Re-gent Street And yet some-how I of-ten feel (Though for the kind Fur-bear-ing Seal I har-bor a Re-spect Pro-found) The Giraffe. SEE the Gi-raffe; he is so tall There is not room to get him all U-pon the page. His head is high-er-- The pic-ture proves it--than the Spire. That's why the na-tives, when they race To catch him, call it stee-ple-chase. His chief de-light it is to set A good example: shine or wet He rises ere the break of day, And starts his break-fast right away. His food has such a way to go,-- His throat's so very long,--and so An early break-fast he must munch To get it down ere time for lunch. The Yak. THIS is the Yak, so neg-li-gee: His coif-fure's like a stack of hay; He lives so far from Any-where, I fear the Yak neg-lects his hair, And thinks, since there is none to see, What mat-ter how un-kempt he be. How would he feel if he but knew That in this Pic-ture-book I drew His Phys-i-og-no-my un-shorn, For chil-dren to de-ride and scorn? A Whale. THE con-sci-en-tious art-ist tries On-ly to draw what meets his eyes. This is the Whale; he seems to be A spout of wa-ter in the sea. Now, Hux-ley from one bone could make An un-known beast; so if I take This spout of wa-ter, and from thence Con-struct a Whale by in-fer-ence, A Whale, I ven-ture to as-sert, Must be an an-i-mat-ed squirt! Thus, chil-dren, we the truth may sift By use of Log-ic's Price-less Gift. The Leopard. THIS is the Le-o-pard, my child; His tem-per's any-thing but mild. The Le-o-pard can't change his spots, And that--so say the Hot-ten-tots-- Is why he is so wild. Year in, year out, he may not change, No mat-ter how the wea-ther range, From cold to hot. No won-der, child, We hear the Le-o-pard is wild. The Sloth.