340 Mr. Burnett's Illustrations of the Unguipedatce. 



one of which, as the Ornithorhyncus, although four-footed, 

 is not mammiferous ; and the other, as the whales, although 

 mammalious, are not four-footed. The subordinate distribu- 

 tion of the Quadrupeds, or truly four-footed beasts, will depend 

 upon the respective developement of the toes and their relative 

 armature by claws or hoofs ; the presence of Marsupia, or the 

 conditions thereof; and subsequently on the characters afforded 

 by the teeth, which, although producing some anomalous asso- 

 ciations, when resorted to as a first diagnosis, become most 

 valuable distinctions when used to indicate especial groups. 



The quadrupeds, which, as a type, are both mammalious and 

 four-footed, become naturally interdistinguished among them- 

 selves by one district, being digitate and having claws : another 

 shewing the toes far less developed, the digits being confined 

 and encased in hoofs : and connecting these two extremes, the 

 hoofed and the claw-footed beasts, there is found an interme- 

 diate district, comprising a most curious race of animals, which 

 are naturally, as it were, parturient by abortion, and for the 

 most part furnished with abdominal teat-pouches, resembling, 

 in some respects, an external matrix or living nest ; and which 

 prsecocinate animals approach, by some of their species, the 

 clawed and digitated, by others, the hoofed extremes of their 

 common type. These three districts are by name the Ungui- 

 pedatae (Uuguipedates), or claw-footed beasts ; the Corni- 

 pedatae (Cornipedates), hoofed or hoof- footed beasts ; and 

 the Praecocinatae (Praecoci nates), Marsupiatae (Marsupiates), 

 pouched beasts, or Mastothecatae (Mastothecates), teat-pouched 

 quadrupeds; the abdominal sac, by which they are character- 

 ized, having been named Mastotheca, or Marsupium. Other 

 names, or modifications of the foregoing, may, and, indeed, 

 have been given to these several districts, still in general they 

 are little more than trifling variations, and scarcely require 

 enumeration even as synonymes. The Unguipedatae might be 

 called Unguiculatae, Ungulatae, or Digitipeda; the Cornipedatae, 

 Ungulosae, or Ungulogradae ; the Praecocinatae, Marsupiatae, 

 Eplacentaria, Marsupialia, &c. &c. ; but the former terms and 

 terminations are, perhaps, the best ; especially as regards the 

 last-named animals, which are all praecocinate, although they 

 are not all possessed of a Marsupium. 



The quadrupeds being the largest type of this first order of 



