Abbatt Toys were sort of the Creative Playthings of England. Paul & Marjorie Abbatt founded their toy company in the 1930's with a focus on education and design. Their friend, the British modernist architect Erno Goldfinger, designed their innovative store. They had some well-designed catalogues somewhere that turned up on eBay once. [I didn't win them.] [Whoops, that was Galt Toys, the other modernist British toy company. Ken Garland was graphic designer for both.] And like Creative Playthings, the whole thing kind of faded away in the 1970's.
In their inimitably awesome way, Things Magazine has scanned a beautiful set of cards from an Abbatt game called Animal Families. Though I'm sure sorting by order/family/genus/species is possible, too, it looks like you're supposed to group animals by continent and/or habitat. Things' scans are so nice, an adventurous parent with a surfeit of cardstock and toner could even recreate the game himself. As far as I know, there are no Abbatts around to complain.
Animal Families from Abbatt Toys [thingsmagazine.net]
