14 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



first time. The work is also greatly enlarged, and the classification greatly 

 improved, especially that of the mammals, which class is now for the first 

 time aptly designated Mammalia. The ordinal term Primates is substituted 

 for Anthropomorpha of the sixth and previous edition, the sloths (genus 

 Bradypus) are removed from it, the genus Lemur is added as a new genus, 

 and the bats are transferred to it from the Ferae. A new order, Bruta, is 

 made up of his former third order Agrise (now suppressed) and of such other 

 extremely heterogeneous elements as the elephant, the manatee, sloths, 

 ant-eaters and the scaly ant-eaters. The order Ferse consists of six properly 

 associated genera; the armadillos, insectivores and bats, formerly included 

 in it, being removed elsewhere. His fourth order, Bestise, is a new group, 

 composed of the pigs, armadillos, opossums and insectivores. The fifth 

 order, Glires, is a natural group, except for the inclusion of the genus Rhino- 

 ceros, novv' most strangely placed with the squirrels and mice. His sixth 

 order, Pecora, is retained as in the previous editions, and is also a natural 

 group. The seventh, Belluse, is a new ordinal group, consisting of the 

 genera Equus and Hippopotamus, transferred from the here disrupted order 

 Jumenta of previous editions. The Cete, now removed by him from the 

 fishes, form his eighth and last order. This reconstruction of the ordinal 

 groups is a great improvement: five new genera are added, two old ones 

 eliminated, and the number of species is increased from 140 to 185. In 

 some of the other classes there are similar radical changes, but there is not 

 time to refer to them. 



The twelfth, and the last edition revised by the author, published in ] 766, 

 shows many improvements over the tenth. It is greatly increased in bulk 

 through the addition of many new genera and a large number of new species. 

 The classification is also judiciously modified at many points. Taking 

 again the class of mammals for illustration, the number of orders is reduced 

 from eight to seven, through the^i^uppression of the grossly unnatural order 

 Bestise and the transference of its genera to other associations, with, however, 

 the retrograde change of placing the insectivores and the genus Didelpkis 

 among the Ferae. The Glires is modified by the removal of the genus 

 Rhinoceros to the order Belluse and the addition to it of Ncctilio, a genus 

 of bats. The order Bruta is the same incongruous association of elephants, 

 manatees, sloths and ant-eaters as in the tenth edition. 



The orders of mammals as now left correspond in .several instances 

 very nearly with those of our modern systems, notably the Primates, Glires, 

 Pecora and Cete. The Ferae of the tenth edition corresponds to the modern 

 Carnivora, but in the twelfth he made the mistake of putting back into it 

 the marsupials and the insectivores. His order Belluae being essentially 

 the modern suborder Perissodactyla, his order Bruta is the only grossly 

 incongruous association of types. 



