m NATURAL HISTORY. 3 



. culture and science in his time — would not be 

 the language of all cultivated men. He took, 

 therefore, little pains to characterize the animals 

 he alludes to, otherwise than by their current 

 names ; and of his descriptions of their habits 

 and peculiarities, much is lost upon us from 

 their local character and expression. There is 

 also a total absence of systematic form, of any 

 classification or framework to express the divis- 

 ions of the animal kingdom into larger or lesser 

 groups. His only divisions are genera and spe- 

 cies : classes, orders, and families, as we under- 

 stand them now, are quite foreign to the Greek 

 conception of the animal kingdom. Fishes and 

 birds, for instance, they considered as genera, 

 and their different representatives as species. 

 Tbey grouped together quadrupeds also, in con- 

 tradistinction to animals with legs and wings, 

 and they distinguished those that bring forth 

 living young from those that lay eggs. But 

 though a system of Nature was not familiar 

 even to their great philosopher, and Aristotle 

 had not arrived at the idea of a classification on 

 general principles, he yet stimulated a search 

 into the closer affinities among animals by the 

 differences he pointed out. He divided the ani- 

 mal kingdom into two groups, which he called 

 Enaima and Anaima, or animals with blood and 

 animals without blood. We must remember, 



