XVill PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
added to them, relative to the rest of the skeleton and to the 
muscles. , 
In the Mammalia I have brought back the Solipedes to the 
Pachydermata, and have divided the latter into families on a 
new plan; the Ruminantia I have placed after the Quadru- 
peds, and the Sea-cow near the Cetacea. ‘The arrangement 
of the Carnaria I have somewhat altered—the Ouistites have 
been wholly separated from the Monkeys, and a sort of pa- 
rallelism between the pouched animals and other digitated 
Mammalia indicated ; the whole from my own anatomical re- 
searches. All that I have given on the Quadrumana and the 
- Bats is based on the recent and profound labours of my friend 
M. Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. ‘The researches of my bro- 
ther, M. Frederick Cuvier, on the teeth of the Carnaria and 
the Rodentia, have proved highly useful to me in forming the 
subgenera of these two orders. Notwithstanding the genera 
of the late M. Illiger are but the results of these same studies, 
and those of some foreign naturalists, I have adopted his names 
whenever my subgenera could be placed in his genera. I 
have also adopted M. de Lacépéde’s excellent divisions of this 
description, but the characters of all the degrees and all the 
indications of species have been taken from nature, either in 
the cabinet of anatomy, or the galleries of the Museum. 
The same plan was pursued with respect to the Birds. I 
have examined with the greatest care and attention more than 
four thousand individuals in the Museum ; I arranged them 
agreeably to my views in the public gallery more than five 
years ago, and all that is said of this class has been drawn from 
that source. Thus, any resemblance which my subdivisions 
may bear to some recent descriptions is on my side purely 
accidental(1). 
(1) This observation not having been sufficiently understood abroad, Iam com- 
pelled to repeat it here, and openly to declare a fact witnessed by thousands in 
Paris—it is this, that all the birds in the public gallery of the Museum were named 
and arranged according to my system in 1811. Even such of my subdivisions 
as I had not yet named were marked by particular signs. This is my date. In- 
