122 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



instances it is not, in fact, apparent. All animals belonging to 

 this type are shy, and evince little or no offensive disposition ; 

 but nature, as if to screen them from their enemies, has endowed 

 them with great caution, uncommon vitality, and in many cases 

 has protected them either with hard skin or a coating of bony 

 armor. (Sws. p. 255.) 



Expl. — Tennirostral type among birds, Gliriforms among 

 Quadrupeds, Birds, Haustellata, Dasypus. 



3. The rasorial type. These are, in general, remarkable for 

 their size,- being inferior only to the natatorial type. Erom 

 these they are further to be distinguished by the strength and 

 perfection of their feet, the toes of which are never united so as 

 to be used for swimming. This perfection, however, is of a very 

 peculiar kind, since it is confined to the powers of walking on 

 dry land, or of climbing among trees. This is the type so re- 

 markable for the greatest development of tail ; and of those ap- 

 pendages, for ornament or defence, which decorate the head. 



Expl. — Ruminantia, Gallinacea, Lamellicornia. 



Swainson's works contain numerous systematic observations of 

 the highest' value, but the general results are nearly always 

 erroneous, chiefly because he overlooked the fact that Rasorial, 

 Suctorial and Aquatic, in reality, are the same things as Typical, 

 Subtypical and Aberrant. Of still greater consequence was it 

 that Swainson did not observe that the Vertebrata form two dis- 

 tinct series or, as he would call it, circles, and that the Marsu- 

 pialia have the same claims to be considered a class as the Am- 

 phibianis. The Quinary arrangement, discovered in 1817 by 

 MacLeay in considering "a small portion" of Coleopterous 

 Insects, was chiefly supported by this erroneous division of the 

 Vertebrata in five classes. Quinaryism may be considered en- 

 tirely arbitrary, although Frlis, Oken* and DeCandolle indepen- 

 dently found the same number to be the clue to all natural groups. 

 Kaupf has advanced that not more than five species could be 

 found in a subgenus " only," founding this law on the study of 

 the Falconidse, but seems afterwards to have abandoned this 

 theory in studying the graminivorous birds, probably discovering 

 that " nature seems to make up by number what she withholds 

 in size," (Sws. 1. c. p. 245.) 



Cuvier was the greatest adversary of the physiophilosophical 

 classification, considering these researches as only idle specula- 

 tions. It was chiefly against the doctrine of the homologies of 

 the Vertebrate skeleton as put forth by Shelling, Oken and 



* Chiefly founded on the five senses. 



t Archiv fur Naturg. 1851, 17, p. 92. Isis 1847, p. 39. 



