176 EDENTATA 



forms this is linked on to the other groups. It is commonly assumed 

 that the Lemurs are nothing more than inferior Primates, but the 

 interval between them in the actual fauna of the world is very great, 

 and our knowledge of numerous extinct types recently discovered 

 in America, said to be intermediate in characters, is not yet 

 sufficient to enable us to form a definite opinion upon the subject. 



The Edentata may be taken first as standing in some respects 

 apart from all the others ; and the Primates must be placed at the 

 head of the series. The position of the others is quite arbitrary, as 

 none of the hitherto proposed associations of the orders into larger 

 groups stand the test of critical investigation, and palaeontological 

 researches have already gone far to show that they are all modifica- 

 tions of a common heterodont, diphyodont, pentadactylate form. 



Order Edextata. 



The name assigned to this group (Avhich some zoologists think 

 ought rather to be ranked as a subclass 1 than an order) b}^ Cuvier 

 is often objected to as inappropriate — for although some of the 

 members are edentulous, others have very numerous teeth — and the 

 Linnaean name Bruta is occasionally substituted. But that term is 

 (piite as objectionable, especially since the group to which Linnaeus 

 applied it is by no means equivalent to the order as now understood, 

 as the names of the genera contained in it, viz. El&phas, Trickechus, 

 Bradypus, Myrmecqphaga, Munis and Dasypus, indicate. It contained, 

 in fact, all the animals then known which are comprised in the 

 modern groups of Proboscidea, Sirenia and Edentata together with 

 the Walrus, one of the Carnivora. If retained at all, it should 

 rather belong to the Proboscidea, as Elcphas stands first in the 

 list of genera in the Systema Natures. Cuvier's order included the 

 Ornithorhynchus and Echidna, the structure of which was then im- 

 perfectly known, and which are now by common consent removed 

 to an altogether different section of the class ; but otherwise its 

 limits are those now adopted. The name Edentata is so generally 

 used, and its meaning so well understood, that it would be un- 

 desirable to change it now ; in fact similar reasons might be assigned 

 for ceasing to use nearly all the other current ordinal designations, 

 for it might be equally well objected that all Carnivora are not 

 flesheaters, many of the Marsupialia have not pouches, and so 

 forth. 



If the teeth are not always absent, they invariably exhibit 

 certain imperfections, which are indeed almost the only common 

 characters binding together the various extinct and existing members 

 of the order. These are — that they are homodont and, with the 



1 The name Paratheria has Wen suggested for this proposed subclass. 



