rRl.FACE TO THE HuST EDITION. XXV 



parate Memoir. I still think it expresses the real relations of animals 

 more exactly than the old arrangement of Vertebrata and Invertebrata, 

 and for the reason that the former animals have a much greater re- 

 semblance to each other than the latter bear to each other, and that it 

 was necessary to mark this difference in the extent of their relations. 



M. Virey, in an article of the " Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Na- 

 turelle," had already discovered a part of the basis of this division, and 

 principally that which depends on the nervous system. 



The particular approximation mutually between the Oviparous Verte- 

 brata originated in the curious observations of M. Geoffrey on the com- 

 position of bony heads ; and from those I have added to them, relative to 

 the rest of the skeleton and to the muscles. 



In the class of Mammalia I have brought back the Solipcdes to the 

 Pachydermata, and have divided the latter into families, in conformity 

 WHth new views ; the lluminantia I have placed after the Quadrupeds, 

 and the Sea-cow near the Cetacea. The arrangement of the Carnaria I 

 have somewhat altered — the Ouistitiss have been wholly separated from 

 the Monkeys, and a sort of parallelism between the pouched animals and 

 other digitated INlammalia indicated ; the whole from my own anatomical 

 researches. All that I have given on the Quadrumana and the Bats is 

 based on the recent and profound labours of my friend and colleague, 

 M. Geoffrey de Saint-Hilaire. The researches of my brother, M. Fre- 

 derick Cuvier, on the teeth of the Carnaria and the Rodentia, have 

 proved highly useful to me in forming the subgenera of these two orders. 

 Notwithstanding the genera of the late M. Illiger are but the results of 

 these same researches, and those of some foreign naturalists, I have 

 adopted his names whenever my subgenera could be placed in his genera. 

 I have also adopted M. de Lacepede's excellent divisions of this descrip- 

 tion; but the characters of all the divisions and all the indications of 

 species have been taken from nature, either in the Cabinet of Anatomy, or 

 the galleries of the Museum. 



The same plan was pursued with respect to the Birds. I have exa- 

 mined with the greatest care and attention more than four thousand indi- 

 viduals in the Museum ; I arranged them agreeably to my views in the 

 public gallery more than five years ago, and all that is said of this class 

 has been drawn from that source. Thus, any resemblance which my 

 subdivisions may bear to some recent descriptions is on my side purely 

 accidental*. 



• [Note added by the Author to this Preface in the Second Edition.— Eng. Ed.] 

 This observation not having been sufliciently understood abroad, I am compelled to 

 repeat it here, and openly to declare a fact witnessed by thousands in Paris— it is 

 tills, that all the birds in the public gallery of the iMuseuni were named and arranged 

 according to my system in 1811. Even such of my subdivisions as I had not yet 

 named were marked by particular signs. This is my date. Independently of this. 



