XVlll PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



added to them, relative to the rest of tlie skeleton and to the 

 muscles. 



In the Mammalia I have brought back the Solipedes to the 

 Pachydermata, and have divided the latter into families on a 

 new plan ; the Rurainantia I have placed after the Quadru- 

 peds, and the Sea-cow near the Cetacea. The arrangement 

 of the Carnaria I have somewhat altered the Ouistites have 

 been wholly separated from the Monkeys, and a sort of pa- 

 rallelism between the pouched animals and other digitated 

 Mammalia indicated ; the whole from my own anatomical re- 

 searches. All that I have given on the Quadrumana and the 

 Bats is based on the recent and profound labours of my friend 

 M. GeofTroy de Saint-Hilaire. The researches of my bro- 

 ther, M. Frederick Cuvier, on the teeth of the Carnaria and 

 the Rodentia, have proved highly useful to me in forming the 

 subgenera of these two orders. Notwithstanding the genera 

 of the late M. Illiger are but the results of these same studies, 

 and those of some foreign naturalists, I have adopted his names 

 whenever my subgenera could be placed in his genera. I 

 have also adopted M. de Lacepede's excellent divisions of this 

 description, but the characters of all the degrees and all the 

 indications of species have been taken from nature, either in 

 the cabinet of anatomy, or the galleries of the Museum. 



The same plan was pursued with respect to the Birds. I 

 have examined with the greatest care and attention more than 

 four thousand individuals in the Museum ; I arranged them 

 agreeably to my views in the public gallery more than five 

 years ago, and all that is said of this class has been drawn from 

 that source. Thus, any resemblance which my subdivisions 

 may bear to some recent descriptions is on my side purely 

 accidental(l). 



(1) This observation not having been sufficiently understood abroad, I am com- 

 pelled to repeat it here, and openly to declare a fact witnessed by thousands in 

 Pai-is it is this, that all the birds in the pul)lic gallery of the Museum were named 

 and arranged according to my system in 1811. Even such of my subdivisions 

 as I had not yet named were marked by particular signs. This is my date. In- 



