PREFACE
Rats can usually be obtained in large quantities in any community if proper trapping methods are used; consequently the rat provides an excellent subject for dissection at colleges in communities where cats or dogs are difficult to obtain. This manual was written to supply laboratory guidance in the study of the rat because it is an inexpensive mammal which is easy to obtain.
The literature on the gross anatomy of this rodent is not extensive. Much of the material in the manual is therefore the result of the writer's own investigations, which were carried on at intervals at the University of Mississippi since the summer of 1920. No attempt has been made in the text to indicate those sections which are wholly the result of the author's work or those for which information was obtained from other sources.
Instructors can use the manual for elementary classes by omitting those sections which they deem of lesser importance, or it can be used in its entirety for classes in advanced vertebrate anatomy. Illustrations have been purposely omitted, because it is better for the student to get his visual impressions from the animal itself. Either the wild Norway rat or its albino variety may be used.
Acknowledgment for limited assistance is due to Martin and Moale's "Handbook of Vertebrate Dissection," Part III (1884). The writer extends special credit and thanks to Mrs. Eunice Chace Greene, formerly of the zoological teaching staff of Smith College, who has very generously read
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