APPENDIX, 409 



Aristotle. Cuvter, torn. I. 



pears evidently to be the dolphin of 

 the ancients, p. 278. 

 The cetaceous animal called mys- The upper jaw of the baljena? is fur- 

 ticetus has no teeth, but hairs in- nished with thin transverse lamina 

 stead, like hogs' bristles. closely set, formed of a kind of fi- 



brous horn, terminating in a bristly 

 fringe at the border, p. 284(.a). 



Theophrastus was the son of a fuller, named Melancthus, and born 370 

 years before the Christian era; he was at first called Tyrtamus, but Aristoile 

 gave him the surname of Theophrastus, on accountof his divine eloquence. 

 He was at first a disciple of Leucipus and of Plato. Tenderly beloved by 

 Aristotle, he succeeded him in the chair of philosophy, in 324, and had 

 more than a thousand disciples; he formed one of the first botanical 

 gardens. His two principal works of natur;il history, are nine books of 

 the history of plants, and six of the causes of plants, a kind of vegetable phy- 

 siology ; he is much better known on account of his characters, translated 

 and so ingeniously imitated by Labruyere. It is said that he lived one 

 hundred years, and that the people of Athens assisted in a body at his 

 funeral. 



Lucius Apuleius was an inhabitant of Madaura, in Africa. He was con- 

 temporary with the Antonimus, and author of a curious romance called the 

 Golden Ass: He employed twenty pages of his first apology in justifying 

 himself for his curiosity in his researches upon fishes, and to prove that it 

 was not for magical operations. It is evident from this discourse, that he 

 has written much upon this class of animals, but his works on this subject 

 are not extant. 



(f^ CaJ We cannot omit the following observations on tlie above result of a 

 most happy combination of ingenuity and sagacity, on the part of Dr. Kidd, -with 

 which he closes his accoimt. 



In comparing, then, the zoology of Aristotle with that of the moderns, it has not 

 been my intention to prove' that the classification of the one is built upon equally 

 clear and extensive demonstrations as that of the other ; but to shew, as in harmony 

 with the general object of this treatise, that, even in the very dawn of science, there is 

 frequently sufficient light to guide the mind to at least an approximation to the truth — 

 to much nearer approximation, indeed, than could have been antecedently expected by 

 those who are not accustomed to reflect philosophically on the uniformity of the laws 

 of nature. Thus, as has been already mentioned, the advancement of science has 

 shewn the existence of such a general coincidence and harmony of relation between 

 the several component parts of an individual animal, that even a partial acquaintance 

 with the details of its structure will frequently enable the inquirer to ascertain its 

 true place in the scale of organization. And hence, although Aristotle knew nothing 

 of the circulation of the blood, or of the general physiology of the nervous system, 

 and even comparatively little of the osteology of animals, yet subsequent discoveries 

 have scarcely disturbed the order of his ai-rangement. He placed the whale, for in- 

 stance, in the same natural division with common quadnipeds, because he saw that 

 like them it is viviparous, and suckles its young, and respires by lungs and not by 

 gills ; and with viviparous quadrupeds it is still classed ; the circulation of its blood, 

 as well as the arrangement of its nervous system, being essentially the same as in 

 that class of animals. And, notwithstanding the difference of its form, its osteology, 

 which holds an analuyij throughout with that of quadrupeds, is the same actually in 

 a part where it would be least expected ; for, with the remarkable exception of the 

 sloth, all viviparous quadrupeds have exactly seven cervical vertebrae, and so has the 

 whale ; whereas fish, to the general form of which the whale closely approximates, 

 having no neck, have no cervical vertebrK ; and the deficiency of the neck iu fish was 

 recognized bv Aristotle. 



dd2 



