THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



WHATEVER work we engage in, or whatever study we 

 enter upon, we shall find our task lightened if we arrange 

 our course according to a regular plan. This order per- 

 vades the whole of Nature, and every single thing, be it 

 an animal, a plant, or a stone, has its precise place, each 

 having some particular feature, habit, or power, by which 

 it differs from others. These differences are in some 

 cases very small, in others very great, and it has been by 

 carefully examining the exact formation and mode of life 

 of each animal, that naturalists (one of the greatest of 

 whom was Baron Cuvier*) have been able to divide the 

 animal kingdom into Classes, Orders, Genera, and 

 Species. 



Now let me explain to you the uses, nay, the absolute 

 necessity of classification. You know that in Australia 

 there are some people who have emigrated from almost 

 every country in the \vorld, and there is no doubt that 

 many of them require to send letters or parcels to their 



* Baron Cuvier was born at Mb'mpelgard (a town formerly belonging 

 to Wiirtemburg, but now to France), on August 23rd, 1769. His father was 

 an officer in a Swiss regiment, and the restricted means of his family conv 

 pelled him to take a situation as tutor. He had, however, displayed great 

 fondness for natural history when only twelve years old, and during the six 

 years he spent as a private tutor, he zealously pursued his favourite study, and 

 so successfully, that on coming to Paris, he was, in 1795, appointed Professor 

 to the Ecole Centrale in the Pantheon. He laid the foundation of the now 

 universally admitted classification in zoology. Cuvier died May i3th, 1832. 



