116 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



Review of the principal Zoological Systems, 



The most striking peculiarity of animals, upon a superficial 

 consideration, is the different organization depending on the 

 various kinds of locomotion, — viz. : walking, creeping, flying 

 and swimming, being in accordance with the elements of habita- 

 tion. In the Genesis and Leviticus the animal kingdom is 

 arranged in this popular manner : 



I. The great land animals or beasts. 



a. The small or creeping land animals (Micromammalia, 

 lizards). 



II. The fowls, as the eagle, the ossifrage, &c. 



a. The fowls that creep, going upon all fours (Coleoptera), or 

 h. Flying creeping things thatgoeth upon all fours, which have 

 legs with which to leap upon the earth, as the locust and 

 the bald locust, the beetle and grasshopper. 



III. Fishes, which are divided into the whales or great monsters 

 of the sea (sharks). 



a. Fishes with scales and fins. 



h. Fishes without scales and fins (Mollusca, Worms). 



This arrangement, probably Egyptian, has the same claim to 

 the name of a system as that of Aristotle, chiefly as it was 

 adopted by Charleton. Klein even quoted it as an authority in 

 opposition to the Linnasan system, as the Roman clergy and 

 others used the naive history of the creation against the doctrines 

 of modern astronomy and geology. 



Aristotle divided the animal kingdom according to the internal 

 structure, independently of their locomotive organs, into hfLtaaxa 

 and ajd-cnaza which were adopted by Cuvier under the less erro- 

 neous names red- and white-blooded animals, changed again by 

 Lamarck to the names generally now used — Vertebrata and 

 Evertebrata. Aristotle divided the Vertebrata on the same 

 erroneous principles as Moses, using the number of legs as the 

 principal base for the secondary divisions. 



Ray (1693) divided the Vertebrata according to the structure 

 of the heart and respiratory organs. In this manner the Ceta- 

 cea were united to the Quadrupeds or Mammalia, and the rep- 

 tiles removed below the birds. This arrangement was not 

 adopted by Linne before the year 1758,* in his fourth edition of 

 the Systema Natura, generally called the tenth. 



Cuvier (1799) arranged the orders of the Mammalia chiefly 



* Brisson used it perhaps in 1756. 



