This does seem to be the case at times, but many of these hard Latin words are often really necessary to make us acquainted with particular kinds of animals and their families; and we will use only the absolutely necessary ones in this book, and master them together, with the different scientific terms explained and made easy to understand, even in the index. Then after mastering these general terms for dividing animals into families, the study of scientific works on Natural History will not be so difficult; for the animals are as carefully classified here, from the works of famous Naturalists, as in those larger volumes, although the Latin names are used only when it is necessary to distinguish different animals that are very much alike, or to divide them into families. There is a very good reason for the hard words and sometimes whole sentences of unpronounceable Greek and Latin, often used to describe a single little animal—the Greek and Latin language is studied and understood by scholars of every other language. If the great Naturalist, Linnaeus, had written in Swedish or German, only a Swede or a German could have understood his meaning. To talk to a Spaniard or a Frenchman about a “River Horse,” giving its English name, would not give him any idea of the animal described, but call it a Hippopotamus (which is derived from two Greek words meaning horse and river,) and he would at once understand the nature of the animal. It is the same with the classification of the different animals. The English and French and German Naturalists differ in their manner of arranging into families—according to the formation of the bodies of various animals, their manner of moving, what they eat, the number of their teeth, the shape of their feet, etc., but it was from the Latin and Greek terms that the names of these divisions were taken for all the different languages in which works of Natural History have been written. Take the first great division—the Mammalia—and it is found that the term is used by Naturalists in all languages, and that it comes from the Latin word mamma, meaning “the breast.” And we find that all animals grouped under this great class are fed on their mother’s milk while they are too small to eat the vegetable and animal food on which the father and mother live. This is very different from the birds who carry the same food that the father and mother eat (the worms and insects) and place it in the mouth of the baby bird; and the fowls who teach their little ones to scratch and pick up their food from the ground. And while the little ones of the birds and fishes and the smaller orders of creation develop rapidly and are soon able to take care of themselves, the babies of some of the larger animals are almost as helpless as human babies, and feed on their mother’s milk for many months before their teeth are well formed and they are strong enough for other food. We often see pictures of Lions and other fierce beasts tearing dead animals