138 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. 
acknowledge the influence of this feeling to the fullest 
extent, we cannot refrain from expressing at the same 
time our firm conviction that the carnivorous quadru- 
peds possess in reality a better title to the place which 
we have assigned them, than the Monkeys which we 
have displaced to make room for them.: The supposed 
transition from man, on which the received arrangement 
is founded, has little to do with the question; and it 
would surely require no great subtilty of argument to 
prove that the Carnivora are more highly typical of the 
great class, of which they form so important a pari, than 
any other tribe whatever. But this is not the proper 
place for entering into so abstract a question; to which 
we have only referred en passant, for the sake of justify- 
ing ourselves upon broader principles for a deviation 
from established custom, which we should not have 
hesitated to adopt, in the present instance, on the nar- 
row ground of expedience alone. Before, however, we 
take leave of it altogether, we cannot avoid asking, why, 
if the Monkeys are to take precedence of the Carnivora 
among Mammalia, the analogous tribe of Birds, the Pies 
and the Parrots, should not also rank above the ornitho- 
logical representatives of the beasts of prey, the towering 
Eagle and the rapacious Vulture ? 
To return, however, to our Monkeys; to which, be it 
observed, we do not pretend to assign this as a definite 
position. They form by far the largest portion of the 
Quadrumana; all the other animals of that order being - 
comprehended, or rather confounded, in a distinct family, 
under the name of Lemurs, from the rightful owners of 
which appellation many of them differ most essentially. 
In addition to the hands on the posterior as well as 
4 
