274: ORDER VIII. 



tinct wild boars, teeth and bones of an animal, by 

 the Baron considered intermediate between the 

 existing Peccaries and the order Ruminantia, which, 

 with the gazelle-like Anoplotherium^ appear to be 

 the links for connecting the Pachydermous order to 

 that of 



ORDER VIII. 



THE RUMINANTIA, 



LIKE the Felidce, an order remarkably homoge- 

 neous, and, consequently, most difficult to separate 

 into groups. Notwithstanding the numerous dis- 

 coveries in zoology, and the vigilant researches of 

 physiologists, little has been added to the stock of 

 our knowledge since the publication of Griffith's 

 Cuvier; and that little of no greater importance 

 towards the determination in question, than other 

 confessedly trivial characters anteriorly used. No 

 doubt, some trifling modifications resulting from the 

 progress of science, might approximate the group- 

 ing still more closely to a natural arrangement, but 

 they are not of a nature to deserve the lengthened 

 discussions in this work, which the considerations 

 tfiey involve would demand ; and there is, we appre- 

 hend, in classification, a paramount importance in 



