CLASSIFICATION Ixi 



opercula, general shape, etc. This classification has now 

 been altogether discarded, and the modern subdivisions of the 

 Fishes are on quite different lines. Lamarck terminates the 

 class with the " ophichthians " or " snake-fishes," doubtless 

 because they seem to come nearest to the next class of reptiles. 



The reptiles, Lamarck's Class XII., are divided by him 

 into four orders. The first order of " Batrachian reptiles " 

 are what we now call amphibians, and are not reptiles at 

 all. The second order is the snakes, the third lizards, and 

 the fourth chelonians or tortoises, which apparently Lamarck 

 regarded as the nearest approach to Birds. The birds to 

 which Class XIII. is devoted were divided by Lamarck into 

 the seven orders of Climbers, Birds of Prey, Passeres, Col- 

 umbae, Gallinaceans, Waders and Palmipeds. The further 

 subdivisions of these orders are largely dependent on the 

 character of the beak. The four orders which Lamarck 

 placed first, and therefore regarded as most primitive or 

 " least perfect," contain birds which depend on their parents 

 for food, etc., after being hatched. The last three orders, 

 which he regarded as the highest, contain the birds which 

 can look after themselves as soon as they are out of the 

 egg. He thus completely inverted the true significance of 

 this particular criterion of development ; for we now know 

 that it is the most highly evolved animals in which the young 

 are least capable of looking after themselves. In the case 

 of man, it is many years before the new individual can reach 

 a state of independence. 



Following the birds, Lamarck introduces the monotremes, 

 including Ornithorhyncus and Echidna, as being half-way 

 between birds and mammals. His fourteenth, and last class, 

 contains the mammals, which are divided into the four 

 orders of exungulate, amphibian, ungulate and unguiculate 

 mammals. The exungulate are what we call the cetaceans. 

 The amphibians comprise the seal, walrus, dugong and 

 manatee. The ungulates correspond to the modern order 

 of that name ; and the remainder of the mammals are 

 included among the unguiculates. The sub-divisions of 



