M. Latreille's Families Naturelles du Regne AnimaL 42^ 



Founded as these " Natural Families of the Animal Kingdom" 

 are on the labours of all his predecessors, it would have been 

 impossible for a naturalist of far inferior sagacity to M. Latreille 

 to have combined them together without exhibiting some novelty 

 in the arrangement of so extensive a subject. It is therefore un- 

 necessary to observe that the present work is consequently novel 

 in numerous particulars. These we shall not attempt to point 

 out, as the arrangement of the Mollusca noticed before will 

 furnish the reader with a specimen of the mode in which they 

 are produced. From that he will collect, that, with some really 

 new views, there is yet more of the appearance than of the 

 essence of novelty; an appearance which is considerably in- 

 creased by the continual introduction of new names to designate 

 divisions long since established and defined. Of this the very 

 first step furnishes a striking example. The animal kingdom is 

 divided into three primary series ; 1st. the Spini-Cerebraux, being 

 the Vertebrata; 2nd, the Cephalidiens, corresponding with the 

 Animaux sans vertebres sensibles of Lamarck; and 3rd, the 

 Acephales, or Animaux Apathiques of the Zoologist last quoted. 

 That the distinctive characters indicated by these names are of 

 primary importance it impossible to deny ; but the propriety of 

 thus affixing new names to old divisions may be well doubted. If 

 this plan were frequently pursued, even the first steps of the 

 science would be so continually shifting as to give an appearance 

 of instability to the whole; for there are few things more attrac- 

 tive to an ambitious mind than to take possession of a place by 

 the side of the masters of Zoology, when it may be acquired at 

 so easy a price as the mere picking out from a lexicon or a diction- 

 ary of a few new words. 



There is yet another character in which M. Latreille's work is 

 presented to the public ; as a " systematic Index io the Diction- 

 naries of Natural History." In this respect it will not be without its 

 use, though inferior in its plan to the " Tableaux Methodiques," 

 of the various classes of animals, contained in the last volume of 

 the 1802 edition of the " Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Na- 

 turelle." The addition in these tables of the characters to the 

 names of the genera considerably increases their utility; but 



