198 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY 
the marks of being violently dissevered from other 
portions. They are—to use a homely expression — 
bits and scraps of that which is, naturally, a uniform 
and connected whole. To illustrate this, we need only 
advert to the best classification of quadrupeds now 
extant. Commencing with the orang otan, the series 
passes from them to the baboons, the monkeys, the 
howling apes, the prehensile monkeys, the lories, 
and the bats. So far there is an evident appearance 
of a natural series, and we begin to think the author 
is really arranging animals according to their organ- 
isation ; but we have arrived at the end of the first 
fragment of the chain, and, dismissing all idea of 
continuity, we are to begin on another. Imme- 
diately after the bats are placed the hedgehogs, and 
following these come the bears. Every person, 
possessing the slightest knowledge of these animals, 
at once perceives how unnaturally they are thus 
combined; and when he learns that there is no 
other reason for this, than because they happen to 
agree in some one or two points of organisation, 
arbitrarily fixed upon as the groundwork of the 
system, he may fairly question whether such a 
series exhibits the true order of nature. Mixed 
systems, moreover, lie under the same objection 
which-has already been urged against artificial ones— 
that is, they exhibit none of that harmony of plan 
between the different groups, which must necessarily 
form a part of the system of nature. Nor do they 
even show an uniformity in the minor divisions of 
that particular department upon which they treat. 
An arrangement of quadrupeds,*for instance, is 
made, as if quadrupeds had no reference to birds, 
