308 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



student became tutor to the son of Comte d'Hericy, 

 and while thus engaged, utilized his leisure time in 

 pursuing ichthyological studies. A neighbor who had 

 a taste for the study of natural history, possessed an 

 extensive collection of the fishes of the Mediterra- 

 nean, and Cuvier soon had every interesting specimen 

 carefully depicted. After studying two years, of fishes 

 in general, he went to Paris, where he was very soon 

 appointed a member of the Commission of Arts, and 

 professor of the Central School of the Pantheon. 

 While holding this situation he prepared for his pu- 

 pils the "Tableaux Elementaire de I'Histoire Naturelle 

 des Animaux" This was his first literary and scientific 

 production, yet it contained a grand division of the 

 animal kingdom into vertebrata, articulata, mollusca, 

 mid radiata. He proposed that objects in natural his- 

 tory should bear double names representing genus 

 and species, as felis leo, the lion ; felis tigris, the tiger ; 

 canis lupus, the wolf; canis vulpes, the fox; and when 

 families were grouped together, a single term was em- 

 ployed, as felidce, to represent all of the cat-kind ; 

 canidcz for all of the dog family, and so on, the termi- 

 nal part of the word signifying that all species re- 

 sembled, in some leading feature, the representative 

 or typical form of the group. 



The department of vertebrates was subdivided 

 into four classes, as mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, 

 before Cuvier's time, yet he so embodied it in his clas- 

 sification that it now appears as the part of a general 

 whole. These classes were further subdivided into 

 orders, as carnivora, herbivora, and cetacca, of the mam- 

 mal class ; perch ers, climbers, waders, and swimmers, 

 of the bird-class ; lizards, snakes, turtles, and frogs, of 

 the reptile class ; and ganoids, placoids, ctenoids, and 



