{ Persistent, as in the Ox, SHEEP, GOAT, or Deciduous, as in the STAG. Quadrisulcate, as the RHINOCEROS, HIPPOPOTAMUS. Bifid, as in the CAMEL, or Multifid, which are With digits adhering together, and covered with a common integument, so that the extremities alone are visible at the margin of the foot, and are covered with obtuse nails, as in the ELEPHANT. With digits in some measure distinct and separable from each other, the nails being Depressed, as in APES, or Compressed, where the incisor teeth are Many, in which group all the animals are carnivorous and rapacious, or at least insectivorous, or subsist on insects with vegetable matter: The larger ones with the or Muzzle short, and head rounded, as the Feline tribe; or {Muzzle with the the Canine tribe; The smaller ones with a long slender body, and short extremities, as the Two very large, of which tribe all the species are phytivorous, as the HARE. i Genus Vermineum, from their worm-like form. term proposed by Linnæus,—the term which was suggested by the outward and visible part of that apparatus by which the warm-blooded viviparous animals exclusively nourish their new-born young1. Linnæus, like Ray, founds his primary divisions of the class MAMMALIA on the locomotive organs; but his secondary divisions or orders are taken chiefly from modifications of the dentary system. The following is an abridged scheme of his arrangement': On comparing the three preceding systems, it will be found that the most important errors of arrangement have been committed, not by Aristotle, but by the modern naturalists. Both Ray and Linnæus have mistaken the character of the horny parts enveloping the toes of the elephant, which do not defend the upper part merely, as is the case with claws, but embrace the under parts also, forming a complete case or hoof. With respect to Linnæus, however, it must be observed, that although he has followed Ray in placing the elephant in the unguiculate group of quadrupeds, he has not overlooked the great natural divisions which the latter naturalist adopted from Aristotle; and his Ungulata is the more natural in the degree in which it approaches the corresponding group in the Aristotelian system. I now proceed to the arrangement of the Mammalia proposed by CUVIER in the last edition of his classical work entitled 'Le Règne Animal distribué d'après son organisation.' Adopting the same threefold primary division of the class MAMMALIA as his predecessors, CUVIER subdivides it into 1 Aristotle knew that the Cetacea were mammiferous: 'rà' (dè dúo μèv μαστοὺς) ‘δ ̓ ἐντὸς, ὥσπερ δελφίς. 2 From the Systema Naturæ, ed. XII. Holmiæ, Tom. I. p. 24. more naturally defined orders, according to various characters afforded by the dental, osseous, generative and locomotive systems, which his great anatomical knowledge had made known to him. That heterogeneous order which Linnæus-prepossessed in favour of the easily recognisable outward character by which he distinguished the class-had characterised by the Mammæ pectorales bina: dentes primores incisores: superiores IV paralleli',' was shewn, by the correlation of anatomical distinctions with the threefold modification of the limbs of the Primates, to be divisible into as many distinct orders. The hands on the upper limbs alone, and the lower limbs destined to sustain the trunk erect, characterised the order Bimana, the equivalent of the Linnæan genus Homo. The genus Simia of Linnæus, with hands on the four extremities, became the order Quadrumana of Cuvier. The genus Vespertilio with the 'manus palmatæ volitantes' formed the group Cheiroptera, answerable to the Dermaptera of Aristotle. RAY had pointed out certain viviparous quadrupeds with a multifid foot as being "anomalous species," instancing as such "the tamandua, the armadillo, the sloth, the mole, the shrew, the hedgehog, and the bat." The first three species are associated with the scaly ant-eaters (Manis) of Asia and Africa, with the Australian spiny ant-eaters (Echidna), and with the more strange duck-moles (Ornithorhynchus) of the same part of the world, to form the order Edentata of Cuvier, which answers to that called Bruta by Linnæus, if the elephant and walrus be removed from it. The rest of Ray's anomalous species exemplify the families Cheiroptera and Insectivora of the Cuvierian system, in which they are associated with the true Carnivora in an order called 'Carnassiers,' answering to the Fera of Linnæus. Cuvier had early noticed the relation of the Australian pouched mammals, as a small collateral series, to the 1 Tom. cit. p. 24. unguiculate mammals of the rest of the world; 'some,' he writes, 'corresponding with the Carnivora, some with the Rodentia, and others again with the Edentata, by their teeth and the nature of their food.' They formed a family of the Carnassiers in the first edition of the Règne Animal',' but were raised to the rank of an order under the name Marsupialia in the second edition, where they terminate that series of the Unguiculata, which possess the three kinds of teeth-incisors, canines and molars. The hoofed animals (UNGULATA, 'animaux à sabots') are binarily divided into those that do, and those that do not, chew the cud; the former constituting the order Pachydermata, the latter that of Ruminantia. The third primary group or subclass of Mammalia is indicated, but without receiving any name distinct from that of the single order Cetacea exemplifying it in the Cuvierian system-an order which would be equivalent to the Mutica of the Linnæan system, save that the manatee which Linnæus placed in the same group as the elephant is associated with the whale in the Règne Animal. The Mammalian system of CUVIER is exemplified in the subjoined Table:-(See p. 9). Important as was the improvement it presented on previous classifications, the progress of anatomical and physiological knowledge, mainly stimulated by the writings and example of Cuvier himself, soon began to make felt the defects of his system. Shortly after its proposition, the zoological mind began to be disagreeably impressed by the results of the application of the characters employed by Cuvier in the formation of the primary and secondary groups of the class; the sloth, for example, being placed above the horse, the mole above the lynx, and the bat above the dog: even the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus-shewn by accurate anatomical scrutiny to be the most reptilian of the mammalian class-takes 1 8vo., 1816. |