THE 



CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



SECOND SERIES. 



ELEMENTARY VIEWS OF THE CLASSIFICATION 



OF ANIMALS. 



By J. W. Dawson, LL.D. F.R.S. 



[The matter of the following pages has been prepared principally 

 for the benefit of students, who are in general much more apt to 

 learn names and details than to attain to general views. It is 

 introductory to the printed synopsis of lectures which I annually 

 prepare for my classes, and is now published under the impression 

 that, though but elementary and general, the views which it con- 

 tains may prove interesting to naturalists, and useful to some of 

 those who may be struggling with the difficulties incident to the 

 study of zoology under the heterogeneous methods of classification 

 which are found in most elementary books. Should time permit, 

 it may be followed by illustrations of the details of some of the 

 classes and orders of animals. The writer acknowleds-es his 

 obligations, as sources of recent information, to Agassiz's Essay 

 on Classification, Dana's Remarks on the Classification of Animals 

 based on Cephalisation, and Huxley's Lectures on Classification, 

 though he cannot follow throughout the systems of any of these 

 authors.] 



1. Introductory Remarks. 



No subject is at present more perplexing to the practical zool- 

 ogist or geologist, and to the educator, than that of zoological 

 classification. The subject in itself is very intricate, and the 

 views given as to certain groups by the most eminent naturalists 

 so conflicting, that the student is tempted to abandon it in despair, 

 as incapable of being satisfactorily comprehended. 



The reasons of this, it seems to the writer, are twofold. First, 

 zoology is so extensive, that it has become divided into a number 

 of subordinate branches, the cultivators of which attach an exag- 



VoL. I. Q No. 4. 



