202 



A HISTORY OF 



orders ; to which he gives names that are not 

 easy of translation: Primates, or principles, 

 with four cutting teeth in each jaw ; Bruta, or 

 brutes, with no cutting teeth; Ferce, or wild 

 beasts, with generally six cutting teeth in each 

 jaw; Glires, or dormice, with two cutting 

 teeth, both above and below; Pecora, or cat- 

 tle, with many cutting teeth above, and none 

 below; Belluae, or beasts, with the fore-teeth 

 blunt ; Cete, or those of the whale kind, with 

 cartilaginous teeth. I have but just sketched 

 out this system, as being, in its own nature, 

 the closest- abridgment: it would take vo- 

 lumes to dilate it to its proper length. The 

 names of the different animals, and their clas- 

 ses, alone make two thick octavo volumes; 

 and yet nothing is given but the slightest de- 

 scription of each. I have omitted all criticism 

 also upon the accuracy of the preceding sys- 

 tems : this has been done both by Buffon and 

 Daubenton, not with less truth than humour ; 

 for they had too much good sense not to see 

 the absurdity of multiplying the terms of sci- 

 ence to no end, and disappointing our curi- 

 osity rather with a catalogue of nature's va- 

 rieties, than a history of nature. 



Instead, therefore, of taxing the memory 

 and teazing the patience with such a variety 

 of divisions and subdivisions, I will take leave 

 to class the productions of nature in the most 

 obvious, though not in the most accurate, 

 manner. In natural history, of all other sci- 

 ences, there is the least danger of obscurity. 

 In morals, or in metaphysics, every definition 

 must be precise, because those sciences are 

 built upon definitions; but it is otherwise in 

 those subjects where the exhibition of the 

 object itself is always capable of correcting 

 the error. Thus it may often happen, that 

 in a lax system of natural history, a creature 

 may be ranked among quadrupeds that be- 

 longs more properly to the fish or the insect 

 classes. But that can produce very little 

 confusion, and every reader can thus make 

 a system the most agreeable to his own ima- 

 gination. It will be of no manner of conse- 

 quence whether we call a bird or an insect 

 a quadruped, if we are careful in marking all 

 its distinctions : the uncertainty in reasoning, 

 or thinking, that these approximations of the 

 different kinds of animals produce, is bu' very 

 and happens but very rarely : whereas 



the labour that naturalists have been at to 

 keep the kinds asu-ider, has been excessive. 

 This, in general. Ins given birth to th;it va- 

 riety of systems which we have just mention- 

 ed, each of which seems to be almost as 

 good as the preceding. 



Taking, therefore, this htitude, and using 

 method only where it contributes to concise- 

 ness or perspicuity, we shall divide animated 

 nature into four classes; namely, Quadrupeds, 

 Birds, Fishes, and Insects. All these seem 

 in general pretty well distinguished from 

 each other by nature; yet there are several 

 instances in which we can scarcely tell 

 whether it is a bird or a quadruped that we 

 are about to examine; whether it is a fish or 

 an insect that offers to our curiosity. Nature 

 is varied by imperceptible gradations, so that 

 no line can be drawn between any two classes 

 of its productions, and no definition made to 

 comprehend them all. However, the dis- 

 tinctions between these classes are suffi- 

 ciently marked, and their encroachments 

 upon each other are so rare, that it will be 

 suificient particularly to apprize the reader 

 when they happen to be blended. 



There are many quadrupeds that we are 

 well acquainted with ; and of those we do not 

 know, we shall form the most clear and dis- 

 tinct conceptions, by being told wherein they 

 differ, and wherein they resemble those with 

 which we are familiar. Each class of quad- 

 rupeds may be ranged under some one of the 

 domestic kinds, that may serve for the model 

 by which we are to form some kind of idea 

 of the rest. Thus we may say that a tiger is 

 of the cat kind, a wolf of the dog kind, because 

 there are some rude resemblances between 

 each ; and a person who has never seen the 

 wild animals, will have some incomplete know- 

 ledge of their figure from the tame ones. On 

 the contrary, I will not, as some systematic 

 writers have done," say that the bat is of the 

 human kind, or a hog of the horse kind, mere- 

 ly because there is some resemblance in their 

 teeth, or their paps. For although this resem- 

 blance may be striking enough, yet a person 

 who has never seen a bat or a hog, will never 

 form any just conception of either, by being 

 told of this minute similitude. In short, the 



" Linnsei Svt. 



