56 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXVII, 



Separation of monotremes, marsupials, placentals (de Blainville). 

 Breaking up of many unnatural groups, e. g., "Bruta," "Bellu^e," 



"Pachydermes" (de Blainville). 

 Recognition of many natural groups, e. g., " Ongulogrades a doigts pairs, '^ 



"Ongulogrades a doigts impairs" (de Blainville). 



E. GEOFFROY SAINT HILAIRE AND G. CUVIER, 1795. 



The elder Geoffroy was one of the earliest naturalists to recognize the 

 peculiar characters of the INIonotremes and Australian Marsupials, and we 

 owe to him many generic and other terms, including "les Monotremes" 

 "Phascolomys," "Dasyurus" "Catarrhini" and "Platyrrhini." He made 

 many observations on the Monotremes, Marsupials, Primates and Chir- 

 optera, his work on the two last named orders being especially referred to by 

 Cuvier in the 'Regne Animal' (ed. I, 1817, p. xxiii). His contributions 

 to philosophical anatomy and to the general development of the idea of 

 evolution have been summarized by Osborn (1899, pp. 196-204). He 

 contributed to the understanding of homological comparisons, especially 

 in his memoir on the bird skull (1803). 



Huxley (1894, p. 293) pronounces him "the most brilliant and, at the 

 same time, the soberest representative of the higher or 'philosophical* 

 anatomy." 



The circumstances of liis first association with G. Cuvier, as related by 

 Flourens (see Alexander, 1861, pp. 164, 105) were as follows: 



The elder Geoffroy in 1793, at the age of twenty-one, was appointed 

 professor of zoology in the newly organized Jardin des Plantes and in 1794 

 he opened the first course of zoology ever given in France. He had been 

 in charge of the living and preserved animals in tlie old Jardin du Roi, and 

 so had become an enthusiastic student of the mammals. About that time 

 M. Tessier was sent to him with certain memoirs by a hitherto unknown 

 naturalist G. Cuvier. Struck with enthusiasm on perusing them, Geoffroy 

 immediately invited Cuvier to join him in his work. "Come," he wrote, 

 "and fulfill among us the part of a Linn.ieus — of another lawgiver of natural 

 history." 



"On the arrival of the nru' Linnaeus [early in 1795], Geoffroy devoted 

 himself without reserve to his interests. . . .Having a lodge at the Museum, 

 he shared it with Cuvier, and threw open to liim all the collection. A mutual 

 devotion to study naturally united their labors, among the first results of 

 which, two may be here noticed. Of one, the object was the classification 

 of viammifers ■ — and here the skillfully sustained idea of the subordination 

 of characters, which was the great resource of Cuvier, predominates. The 

 other was the history of the makis, or apes of Madagascar; and in this we 



