Books with author Lucas

Excerpt from The Pleasures of a Pigeon-FancierTake the Flowers also. Are they not in comparably beautiful, as they tessellate the earth with a wealth of colour and cunning diversity of design A plainer vesture might have answered every material purpose of the flower's creation. There was no necessity for that blaze of colour if its only office was to feed the cattle or manure the soil. A common garment would have done for these common purposes. But because it was an ordained minister of God to appeal to the higher faculties of man, and bear its royal witness to the King of human hearts and lives, therefore was it clothed with a courtier's robes, and decked with the honours of heaven's am bassador.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Pleasures of a Pigeon-FancierTake the Flowers also. Are they not in comparably beautiful, as they tessellate the earth with a wealth of colour and cunning diversity of design A plainer vesture might have answered every material purpose of the flower's creation. There was no necessity for that blaze of colour if its only office was to feed the cattle or manure the soil. A common garment would have done for these common purposes. But because it was an ordained minister of God to appeal to the higher faculties of man, and bear its royal witness to the King of human hearts and lives, therefore was it clothed with a courtier's robes, and decked with the honours of heaven's am bassador.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

At the present time the interest in the ancient life of this earth is greater than ever before, and very considerable sums of money are being expended to dispatch carefully planned expeditions to various parts of the world systematically to gather the fossil remains of the animals of the past. That this interest is not merely confined to a few scientific men, but is shared by the general public, is5shown by the numerous articles, including many telegrams, in the columns of the daily papers. The object of this book is to tell some of the interesting facts concerning a few of the better known or more remarkable of these extinct inhabitants of the ancient world; also, if possible, to ease the strain on these venerable animals, caused by stretching them so often beyond their due proportions. The book is admittedly somewhat on the lines of Mr. Hutchinson's "Extinct Monsters" and "Creatures of Other Days," but it is hoped that it may be considered with books as with boats, a good plan to build after a good model. The information scattered through these pages has been derived from varied sources;6some has of necessity been taken from standard books, a part has been gathered in the course of museum work and official correspondence; for much, the author is indebted to his personal friends, and for a part, he is under obligations to friends he has never met, who have kindly responded to his inquiries. The endeavor has been conscientiously made to exclude all misinformation; it is, nevertheless, entirely probable that some mistakes may have crept in, and due apology for these is hereby made beforehand. The author expects to be taken to task for the use of scientific names, and the reader may perhaps sympathize with the old lady who said that the discovery of all these7strange animals did not surprise her so much as the fact that anyone should know their names when they were found. The real trouble is that there are no common names for these animals. Then, too, people who call for easier names do not stop to reflect that, in many cases, the scientific names are no harder than others, simply less familiar, and, when domesticated, they cease to be hard: witness mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, boa constrictor, all of which are scientific names. And if, for example, we were to call the Hyracotherium a Hyrax beast it would not be a name, but a description, and not a bit more intelligible.8Again, it is impossible to indicate the period at which these creatures lived without using the scientific term for it—Jurassic, Eocene, Pliocene, as the case may be—because there is no other way of doing it.

Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. This means that we have checked every single page in every title, making it highly unlikely that any material imperfections – such as poor picture quality, blurred or missing text - remain. When our staff observed such imperfections in the original work, these have either been repaired, or the title has been excluded from the Leopold Classic Library catalogue. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, within the book we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience. If you would like to learn more about the Leopold Classic Library collection please visit our website at www.leopoldclassiclibrary.com