CHAP. XIII.] TEE CAT'S PLACE IN NATURE. 467 



groups, as they exist in the class Mammalia, must be more 

 or less considered; for the cat belongs to a mammalian genus 

 which comprises the majority of the forms reviewed in the twelfth 

 chapter of this work. The whole of these forms — all the lions, 

 tigers, leopards, jaguars, pumas, ocelots, lynxes, cheetahs, and other 

 living and extinct cats — form together a group which has the 

 zoological rank of a " family," and it is a family of an " order" divisible 

 into " sub-orders," while the order itself is one of various others which 

 go to make one of the three very unequal "sub-classes" which 

 together make up the whole class Mammalia. The class Mammalia 

 has been now compared with all the other classes of back-boned 

 animals, and the vertebrate sub-kingdom with all other sub- 

 kingdoms of animals. It remains to compare the cat's sub-class with 

 the other mammalian sub-classes ; the cat's order with the other 

 orders of its sub-class ; the cat's sub-order with the other sub-orders 

 into which its order is divisible, and the cat's fanulj/ with the other 

 families which, together with that family itself, make up the sub- 

 order within which the cat is included. This done, we have but to 

 consider the results arrived at in the twelfth chapter as to genera 

 into which the cat's family is divisible, in order to exhaust our 

 present inquiry by attaining a final and satisfactory answer to the 

 question " What is the cat's place in nature ? " and to understand 

 the cat's taxonomy. 



Closely allied to the domestic cattle — our sheep and oxen — are 

 all bisons, bufi'aloes, goats, antelopes, deer, giraffes, chevrotains,* 

 llamas, and camels. Less closely allied, but still allied, are all 

 peccaries and swine, and the hippopotamus. With these, also, may 

 be associated the rhinoceros and tapirs, and lastly all asses, quaggas, 

 zebras, and horses. All these creatures together constitute one 

 order of mammals, the order Ungulata, into which the little hyrax, 

 the *' coney " of the English Bible, may or may not be admitted, 

 according to the view of classification adopted. 



Somewhat allied to ungulates, but distinct from them, are the 

 elephants, which form the order Proboscidea, an order which once — ' 

 with its various species of elephant, large and small, its Mastodon 

 and Dinotheria — was rich in species and individuals, and was widely 

 distributed over the world's surface. 



Somewhat related to them again is the numerically very small 

 order Sirenia : an order now containing only the Manatee and 

 Dugong, although another genus, Hl/i/tina, still existed at no distant 

 period.f 



Other marine creatures, really very different in nature from the 

 Sirenia, were long classed with them. These are the many kinds of 

 whalebone-whales, porpoises, sperm-whales, and dolphins, which 

 together make up the order Cetacea. Yet other marine creatures, of 

 less decidedly and exclusively aquatic habits, are the seals and sea- 



* Very small animals, commonly called r f It was exterminated in tlie year 

 in error musk-deer. | 1768. 



H H 2 



