Scientific Lectures. 219 



SCIENTIFIC LECTUKE.— II. 



HOW ANIMALS MOVE. 



By Professor E. S. Morse. 



The second of the series of scientific lectures before the American 

 Institute was delivered last evening at the Cooper Institute, by Prof. 

 E. S. Morse of the Peabodj Academy of Science, Salem, Mass. Sub- 

 ject : " How Animals Move." The lecture was illustrated by draw- 

 ings of the animals, which were rapidly and finely executed upon a 

 blackboard. The President of the Institute, Mr. Horace Greeley, 

 introduced the lecturer who spoke substantially as follows : 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — In selecting this subject for a lecture, I 

 had a two-fold object in view. To compass within the limits of a 

 single lecture a rapid sketch of the animal kingdom, and to illustrate 

 from the examples cited a new principle of classification. The great 

 thinking class desire principles. They demand the results of scientific 

 investigation. They have no desire to know the number of petals in 

 a flower, or the number of segments in an insect, and while this work 

 must be done, and pati^it inquirers there be who are continually add- 

 ing the minutiae to the science, the public are only interested in the 

 deductions drawn from this maze of facts. In the classification of 

 animals we shall find principles that give us a clue to the relative 

 superiority of an animal, and while there is no question about the 

 highest animal in existence, or certain forms which are known to be 

 the lowest, the hundreds of thousands of intermediate forms are to 

 be classified and arranged in- a natural sequence. The relations 

 among animals may be shown by their structural resemblances, but 

 the relative grade of animals is shown not only by the greater compli- 

 cation of their structure, but also by certain principles which I will 

 illustrate. A principle, first enunciated by Prof. Agassiz, is that 

 animals which are aquatic in their habits (in their respective groups) 

 are inferior to those which are terrestrial or aerial. 



