MAMMALIA. 



201 



in its place in the alphabet ; and we trust that wha 

 has been stated here will render a mere reference 

 from that word to this article quite sufficient for al 

 purposes to the common reader. 



We could have wished to be able to state more 

 clearly the relations of those marsupial animals, to the 

 ordinary mammalia as well as to each other; but so 

 many anomalies present themselves in both of these 

 respects, that it is doubtful whether, in the present 

 state of our information concerning them, an increase 

 of words would produce any increase of knowledge. 



CETACEA. This is the last order of mammalia in 

 the view which we have taken of them ; and indeed, 

 in strict propriety, they belong to the true mammalia, 

 and therefore should precede the marsupial animals ; 

 but it is sometimes convenient to sacrifice a little oi 

 the structural arrangement of animals, for the sake ol 

 that part of the arrangement which guides us to their 

 localities ; inasmuch as, without the study of the 

 locality, as well as the organisation of the animal, we 

 are furnished only with half the lesson of wisdom 

 which the animal is calculated to afford. Indeed we 

 cannot properly appreciate the structure, without 

 taking the locality along with us ; because the organs 

 of motion, and the external parts generally, are 

 adapted to the locality ; and the internal parts are 

 necessarily adapted to the external, in order that the 

 animal may be one complete and symmetrical whole, 

 and not an assemblage of parts incongruous to each 

 other. 



Now, all the mammalia of the orders which we 

 have already noticed, whether placental or marsupial, 

 are, to some extent or other, land animals ; for even 

 the amphibia, the seals and the morses, which are 

 more completely formed for the water than any of the 

 rest, can, and do, lie on the banks and rocks for hours 

 at a time, enjoying themselves in the air and basking 

 in the sun ; and the others, whether placental or mar- 

 supial, which find the whole or the greater part of 

 their food in the waters, are more decidedly land 

 animals, and capable of ranging to some distance 

 over the dry surface. The otter, for example, is 

 rather a fleet walker ; and the palmated opossum, 

 though not quite so fleet, is still a tolerable walker. 

 Even the ornithorhynchus, slow as it is, can get on 

 Faster than some of the toothless animals which live 

 habitually upon the land ; and thus, though they all 

 differ by shades greater or less, there is none of the 

 mammalia belonging to any of the preceding eight 

 orders which has not some capacity of action, both 

 on the land and in the water. 



The cetacea, on the other hand, though true mam- 

 malia in the whole of their internal structure, and in 

 ill the essential points of their economy, considered 

 without reference to the element in which they 

 reside, and for which alone their external form and 

 their organs of locomotion are adapted, are, in conse- 

 quence of this adaptation, perfectly helpless on the 

 land, or even when they ground on the shallows in 

 mch a manner as not to be able again to get afloat. 

 Some of that section of them which are herbivorous, 

 md, as such, approach a little nearer to land, or 

 it all events to shore animals than the cetacea of 

 :he sea, can contrive to shuffle a little way up the 

 shallow and back again, in the course of their feed- 

 ng. But the characteristic cetacea, which are those 

 )f the sea, though they do not die for want of 

 jreathing, as a fish does which breathes through 

 :he medium of water, are yet so perfectly helpless 



when stranded by accident, that fhev very speedily 

 perish for want of food, or in consequence of the 

 injuries which they do themselves in their attempts 

 to get off. This draws a perfect line of distinction 

 in point of locality between them and every descrip- 

 tion of the land mammalia, and completely justifies 

 the considering them as separate from all descrip- 

 tions of the latter, whether they are, in the physio- 

 logical character upon which the distinction is founded, 

 equally true mammalia with the cetacea or not. The 

 cetacea claim our separate attention upon other 

 grounds : they are by far the largest and most pow- 

 erful of all the mammalia ; and their pasture is 

 wider in proportion. Setting aside those which 

 frequent the fresh waters, their pasture is in mere 

 extent full two and a third times as great as that 

 of the land mammalia : and when we consider that 

 much of the land is unfit for the support, or even 

 for the travelling, of any mammalia, we are con- 

 strained to admit that these animals have many times 

 the range of any or all of those of the same class 

 which inhabit the land only. We do not mean to 

 say that their numbers are greater ; because, they 

 are all large animals ; and we find, upon examining 

 the land mammalia, that, unless in the case of genera 

 specially adapted for confined and peculiar localities, 

 their numbers increase nearly in the same proportion 

 as their size diminishes. 



In the article CETACEA, in its alphabetical place in 

 this work, we went into considerable details, both of 

 the general structure and species of these animals ; 

 and in a preceding section of this article we had 

 occasion again to revert to their organs of swimming, 

 more especially to that most powerful organ of the 

 whole, the tail of the black or Greenland whale. In 

 consequence of this, it will be necessary only to give 

 a few hints in this place, in order that our analytical 

 list of the orders of the mammalia may be complete , 

 and that for purposes of general comparison, and for 

 inferring from this comparison the relative importance 

 of the different mammalia, the reader may not have 

 to refer from this general article to any particular 

 ones, which reference might disturb his comparison. 



Generally speaking, then, the cetacea are mamma- 

 lia, without a single external vestige of hind feet or 

 legs ; and the whole of the posterior part of their 

 body is concentrated into a thick and powerful but 

 tapering tail, which ends in a great cartilaginous 

 lobe, which is placed horizontally, or in a cross 

 direction to that of the caudal fin of fishes ; and 

 :hough their neck consists of the same number of 

 aones as that of the longest and most supple neck 

 of the land mammalia, those bones are so exceed- 

 ngly short, and so totally without motion upon 

 each other, that there is no bending in an}' direction 

 of the head in respect of the body, and no bending 

 of the body in the part anterior of the fore-legs. 

 The structure of those legs has been explained in a 

 *brmer section, when it was shown that externally 

 ;hey have the form of a sort of fins, though they still 

 retain so much of the action of the anterior of land 

 mammalia, as to be capable of clasping, and also 

 of striking, and that with considerable force. Their 

 nain, though small in respect of the head in many of 

 the species, is still of considerable size, and the parts 

 of it well developed ; but the external organs of 

 he two principal senses, those of seeing and hear- 

 ng, are small, there being no external ears ; and the 

 yes, though clear and expressive, being very minute 



