REPORT ON ZOOLOGY. 157 



true natural system, and (as has already been twice observed*) 

 been enabled to " reconcile facts which upon no other plan can 

 be reconciled." 



It is necessary now to revert in point of time, for the purpose 

 of noticing some works which appeared on the Continent during 

 the above period. In 1821, Oken published his Esquisse de 

 Systhne d' Anatoinie, de Fhysiologie, et d'Histoire Naturelle. 

 This celebrated German naturalist is well known to have im- 

 bibed some very original views connected with the classification 

 of animals, which have led to a peculiar school of zoology in 

 Germany, in like manner as those of MacLeay have in England. 

 I regret that I am unable to say much of his system, which how- 

 ever I believe to be only a modification of one which he had 

 before published in some of his earlier worksf. It is based 

 upon a theory which supposes the animal kingdom to be deve- 

 loped after the same order as that in which the organs are in 

 the body. He considers that these organs form, characterize, 

 and represent the classes ; and that there are the same number 

 of classes as there are organs. He also attaches to them names 

 derived from the organs. Fanciful as this theory appears, it 

 has not only had many followers in Germany, but has given rise 

 to several attempts at a natural classification of animals founded 

 upon analogous principles. Such is the " Synoptic Table of the 

 Animal Kingdom," published at Dresden,inl826, by Ficinus and 

 Carus|, in which the leading divisions are based upon views 

 somewhat similar to those of Oken. In 1827, Leuckhart also 

 published, at Heidelburg, " An Attempt towards a Natural Clas- 

 sification of Intestinal Worms, followed by a Table of the 

 Affinities of Animals in general," constructed upon the same 

 principles§. I am unable to notice these works more particu- 

 larly, but I conceive that it would be unnecessary, were it in 

 my power to do so. 



In 1822, Blainville published his Principes d' Anatomie Com- 

 paree, annexed to which are some Synoptic Tables of the Ani- 

 mal Kingdom, containing a slight modification of a new system 

 first brought forward in 1816 in the Journal de Physique\\. 

 In tliis system, the primary divisions, which are called sub- 

 kingdoms, and are three in number, are established on characters 



* Kirby, Introd. to Entom., vol. iv. p. 359 ; and Swains. Fn. Bor. jIm., part 2. 

 p. xlvi. 



t Philosophy of Nature, (in German,) Jena, 1809, 3 vols. 8vo. Also, Trea- 

 tise on Natural History, (in German,) Jena, 1816. Oken is also the editor of 

 a valuable German periodical, called Isis, containing many important papers iu 

 zoology. He was the first in Germany to abandon the Linnsean system. 



X Bull, des Sci. 1829, torn. xvii. p. 258. § Id., 1829, torn. xvii. 



It torn. Ixxxiii. p. 244. 



