SECOND 

 GREAT DIVISION 



OF THE 



ANIMAL, KINGDOM.^ 



ANIMALIA MOLLUSCA.* 



The MoUusca have neither an articulated skeleton nor a vertebral 

 canal. Their nervous system is not united into a spinal marrow, but 

 merely into a certain number of medullary masses distributed in differ- 



* N.B. Linnaeus united all invertebrate animals without articulated limbs in a 

 single class, under the name of Vkrmes, dividing them into five orders : the Intes- 

 TiNA, embracing some of my Annclides and Intestina ; the Mollusca, comprehend- 

 ing my Naked MoUusca, my Echinodermata, and part of my Intestina and Zoophytes ; 

 the Testacea, comprising my MoUuscaand Annelides with shells ; the Lythophyta, 

 or Stony Corals ; and the Zoophytes, embracing the remainder of the Pohjpi, some 

 of the Intestina and the Infusoria. 



No regard whatever was paid to nature in this arrangement, aud Brugiere, 

 Encycl. Method., endeavoured to rectify it. He there established six orders of 

 worms, viz. the IXFURIOSA ; the Intestina, including the Annelides; the Mol- 

 lusca, uniting several of my Zoophytes to my true Mollusca ; the Echinodermata, 

 which only comprised Echinus aud Asterias ; the Testacea, nearly the same as 

 those of Linnaeus ; and the Zoophytes, under which name he included the Corals 

 only. This arrangement was merely superior to that of Linnaeus in the more com- 

 plete approximation of the Annelides, and by the distinction it eflfected of a part of 

 the Echinodermata. 



I proposed a new arrangement of all the invertebrate animals, founded on their 

 internal structure, in a paper read before the Societe d'Histoire Naturelle on the 

 10th of May 1795, of which my subsequent labours on this part of natural history 

 are the development. 



0:^ fa) It is proper to inform our readers that in placing this Division of the 

 Animal Kingdom after the Fishes, we have made a correction of the confused 

 arrangement which exists in the volumes of the French Original, and- by which the 

 Mollusca and the Zoophytes were placed in juxta position, whilst the Insects fol- 

 lowed the latter. Cuvier was under the necessity of yielding to the circumstances 

 which imposed upon him the inconvenient plan pursued by him in these volumes ; 

 and they arose from his wish to devote the whole of the last two volumes of the 

 original to the labours of M. Latreille, who has supplied the description of the 

 Insects. In his preface to the third volume the author explains his motives, and as 

 they have been above substantially stated, we will merely add the remainder of the 

 remarks contained in this preface. He states the reasons which delayed the pnblica- 

 VOL. in. B 



