174 CLASSIFICATION OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



from? certainly not from Nature, for we find it the case with no animals 

 which are more or less regular in their habits; but I suppose there is no 

 instance more forcible and striking in this particular than that of the fea- 

 thered tribes, whose domestic and parental duties return in regular succession 

 with every spring; and as the youth of the year brings into existence those 

 vegetable products, which await but the sun's all-enlivening beams to spring 

 into life, and growth, and beauty, so they annually choose their partners, 

 and enter into all the domestic labours which occupy with ourselves the 

 whole duration of our lives. I have therefore considered the relative position 

 which this class of beings occupies in the scale of creation, and developes 

 as much as possible that exquisite arrangement by which every thing is 

 brought to an equality, having regard to the circumstances and situations 

 of every member. 



Age upon age sees the method and materials which have been used 

 from time immemorial by each little songster, or more noble tenant of 

 air, unaltered, so that the merest school-boy, unlearned enough in other 

 particulars, will tell you with accuracy what bird's nest it is you may chance 

 to find in the absence of the birds who built it. Instinct works by rules 

 so immutable that the same situations are always chosen, because they are 

 the best; how ridiculous would it be for a large bird to build in a thick 

 bush, when he could come at his nest with difficulty, or a small one on 

 the apex of a vast forest-tree. There have not, doubtless, been wanting 

 instances where these pretty creatures have been betrayed by accidental 

 circumstances to choose a very foolish and unsafe place, but this would 

 not have been the case in the wilderness; these are the rare exceptions 

 to that vast and miraculous rule of action which pervades every atom of 

 this beautiful world, and who can regard it without wonder? 





ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, 

 BY THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NERVES. 



BY F. M. BURTON, ESQ. 

 C Continued from page 127. ) 



No. IV. 



The next great division of the Animal Kingdom, the Heterogangliata, 

 or Mollusca, contains seven classes — Girrhipoda, Brachiopoda, Tunicata, 

 Conchifera, Gasteropoda, Pteropoda, and Cephalopoda. 



The term "Mollusca," employed by Cuvier, has long since been consid- 

 ered not sufficiently distinctive to designate this important division, and it has, 

 therefore, by degrees given place to the more important name "Hetero- 

 gangliata," indicative of the peculiar character of the nervous system, which 



