1825,] Mr. Gray on Mammalia, 337 



Article VI. 



An Outline of an Attempt at the Disposition of Mammalia into 

 Tribes and Families, with a List of the Genera apparently 

 appertaining to each Tribe, By J.E. Gray, Esq. FG8. &c. 



(To the Editors oi ihe Annals of Philosophy.) 



GENTLEMEN, British Museum. 



Although popular curiosity is almost exclusively confined 

 to the study of the manners of this class of animals, an eminent 

 zoologist has observed, that notwithstanding the anatomy of the 

 Mammalia has had infinitely more attention paid to it than that 

 of all the rest of the organized creation put together, it is not too 

 much to say that their natural arrangement is as little or even 

 less knovi^n than that of any other part of zoology. 



Indeed llliger and Cuvier are the only zoologists, since the time 

 of Linnaeus, who have paid attention to the classification of Mam- 

 malia. The arrangement of the former is professedly artificial, 

 and of that of the latter, the above quoted zoologist has observed, 

 that no where at least do we find inconsistencies so conspicuous 

 as in the following order (quoting that of Cuvier), which is that 

 nevertheless of the most learned comparative anatomist in 

 existence. 



I have found the orders of Linnaeus, which are merely a para- 

 phrase of those proposed by Ray, to be exceedingly natural, and 

 several of my famihes have been established as orders and genera 

 by Cuvier and others. In the following sketch, the disposition 

 is more novel than the families themselves, except in the order 

 GlireSy where I have attempted (but not very successfully I am 

 afraid), to re-model them entirely, and to divide them according to 

 their general habits. In so doing I placed the genera together, 

 in what I considered natural tribes, and then threw them 

 into what appeared to be natural groups, and have at- 

 tempted to find out some character common to the tribes by 

 which these groups might be distinguished ; but much more is 

 wanting to be known respecting the genera of this order. 



I have added to each of the tribes a list of the published 

 genera which have come to my knowledge, with the name of the 

 original describer.* 



§ 1. Teeth of the three distinct sorts, and forming a continuous 

 series. 



Order I. — Primates, Lin. 

 The anterior, and the hinder extremity, with a distinct and 



* The IMammalia at present in the JMuseum amounting to about 200 species, are dis- 

 posed, as far as is consistent with their being well seen in the present confeed space, 

 according to the following arrangement. 



]>iew Series, vol. x. z 



