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



doubtfully bracketed with the Edentates as being "Anomaux pour nager," 

 while the Sirenians are separated from the Cetaceans and bracketed with the 

 "Ongulogrades" as "Anomaux pour nager." These two steps alone 

 (whatever may be said as to their permanent value) indicate a quite Lin- 

 ntean search for affinities hidden beneath the disguise of divergent adapta- 

 tions. The Cuvierian system (at least in its early form) may be said to have 

 failed for the most part to discriminate between these two great classes of 

 characters. 



Notwithstanding the confusing analogies presented by Marsupials and 

 Monotremes with other orders the two groups are set oif in a division ("Di- 

 delphes") coodinate with that of all the other mammals ("Monodelphes"); 

 while a foot-note explains that the Monotremes might perhaps form a sepa- 

 rate subclass. This great step, perhaps the most important one in the his- 

 tory of the classification of mammals, had (as already noted) been fully 

 prepared for by the discussions of Lamarck, Geoffroy and the brothers 

 Cuvier, which had also brought forward the problem of the value of the 

 reproductive system as a major criterion of classification; but it remained 

 for de Blainville to appreciate fully the taxonomic bearings of these facts. 



De Blainville was apparently the first to use the subclass ("sous-classe") 

 in its modern sense. His "ordres" are seen to correspond to superorders 

 or even cohorts (p. 49). They are held together by the deeper characters of 

 the brain and skull, while their subdivisions are defined to a considerable 

 extent by means of limb structure. Osteological characters were evidently 

 given high value in the classification, and a searching analysis leads to some 

 valuable new combinations, such as the "Ongulogrades a doigts pairs" 

 (later called "Artiodactyla" by Owen) and the "Ongulogrades a doigts 

 impairs" (Perissodactyla). This was a great improvement over all previous 

 classifications of the ungulate orders, but zoologists were slow in accepting 

 the change. The elephants are again freed from the other ungulates (as in 

 several earlier schemes) and now occupy a separate order "les Gravigrades." 

 The largely unnatural assemblages "Ungulata," "Unguiculata," "Natan- 

 tia," etc. of previous authors are thus abandoned. 



The Primates are correctly classified. The Anthropoids are sharply 

 separated from the Lemuroids; as in Geoffroy St. Hilaire's scheme, the New 

 World and Old World monkeys form coordinate divisions of "les Singes"; 

 the Aye-Aye {cf. Illiger) is correctly allocated. A second grand division 

 ("anomaux") of "les Quadrumanes" is less felicitous (Galeopithecus 

 -\-Bradijpns), and is retained with misgivings in the later classification after a 

 long but faulty analysis of osteological characters. 



The word " Carnassiers " is followed by a question mark as if the natural- 

 ness of the assemblage were doubted. The division "anomaux" brings 



