Baron Cuvier cm the state of Natural History. 11 



Diard and Duvaucel that we owe these additions in the class of 

 quadrupeds ; and they are inserted, with many others, in the 

 great work which MM. GeofFroy St Hilaire and Frederick Cu- 

 vier have undertaken in this department of zoology. 



The menageries in which these animals have been collected, 

 have afforded to the observer means of examining instinct, and 

 of fixing with precision the limits by which that faculty is sepa- 

 rated from human intellect. The labours of M. Frederick Cu- 

 vier on this subject have opened a new path in this department 

 of philosophy. 



We have no precise ideas as to the number of birds, reptiles, 

 and fishes, on which there have not lately been any general 

 works ; but all the collections swarm with new species waiting 

 to be described. 



After the beautiful collective descriptions of birds by MM. 

 Levaillant, Audibert, and VieiUot, MM. Temminck and Laugier 

 have lately undertaken one which already approaches the 300th 

 plate, without there being any thing in it that has appeared in 

 former works. 



The Count de Lacepede, twenty years ago, in his celebrated 

 History of Fishes, described not less than 1500 fishes, comprising 

 all those of which authors had spoken, as well as those which 

 he had seen. The royal cabinet alone possesses at the present 

 day 2500, of which more than the half have been added within 

 the last ten years. But these 2500 species probably form but a 

 small proportion of what the sea and rivers will furnish. The 

 rivers of France produce about 50, and the Ganges alone has 

 already afforded 270 to Dr Hamilton Buchanan. There is no 

 doubt that the other rivers of warm countries possess propor- 

 tional numbers. 



Similar augmentations are manifested in M. de Lamarck's 

 great works on the Invertebrate Animals, in that of M. Lamou- 

 roux on the Polyparia, and in the magnificent work which M. de 

 Ferussac has lately devoted to the land and fresh-water Mollus- 

 ca alone. M. Rudolphi has almost revealed a world in his his- 

 tory of the worms which live in the bodies of other animals. 



In the class of insects in particular, the numbers are altoge- 

 ther astonishing. There is no country, however well examined 

 it may be, that does not daily furnish new species ; and it is by 



