205 
being in any way modified by the colours placed underneath it. The 
general tints approximate, as may readily be observed, to those of the 
branches of trees, just as those of most animals do to the places in 
which they dwell; but I have never seen the faculty of changing 
called into play with any apparent object. It is only when the light 
is removed that the animal assumes a colour which absorbs but little 
of it. 
Regretting that I have not been able to attain any more definite 
conclusions, I offer these few remarks, hoping that to some naturalist, 
who may undertake the investigation of these singular phenomena, 
they may prove not to have been thrown away. 
Pimlico, July 1851. 
3. On THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE EDENTATE MAMMALIA. 
By H. N. Turner, Jun. 
In offering to the Society a summary of my observations on the 
craniology of the Edentate order, I have not so great a number of 
hitherto unrecorded facts to bring forward as in some of my former 
communications. The very remarkable modifications which this order 
is seen to present, not only in comparison with the rest of the Mam- 
malian class, but also among its own members, and the wonderful 
variety of extinct gigantic species which the New World has yielded 
to research, have caused the osteology of the group to be more mi- 
nutely investigated ; while the small number of species and the striking 
external differences which they exhibit, have left but little room for 
doubt in the minds of naturalists as to their true arrangement. I will 
therefore simply point out such of the cranial peculiarities as seem to 
be characteristic of the order and of its families and genera, dividing 
it, as appears to me necessary, into five families, since the two forms 
inhabiting the Old World differ so much from each other, and from 
the three groups into which those of the New World naturally divide 
themselves, that although each consists of a single genus, and one of 
but a single species, it seems requisite that both should stand di- 
stinct. It will also be necessary to remodel the genera of the Arma- 
dilloes, and to define them anew by their external characters as well 
as by those of the skull, since the presence of a tooth in each of the 
intermaxillary bones of a single species of the family has prevented 
the essential similarities and differences from being duly appre- 
ciated. 
Although some few naturalists may still associate this order with 
the true Ungulata, for the sake of keeping the divisions of the class 
within the predetermined number five, I think that most of those 
who have given particular attention to the subject will agree, that 
so natural and strongly-marked a group is well worthy of isolation, 
which was the opinion of Linnzeus and Cuvier, although the former 
wrongly associated with it a few genera belonging properly to other 
roups. 
The characters possessed in common by the members of so diver- 
