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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 668 



stitute great improvements in the system. 

 He also first recognized the desirability of 

 combining in major groups classes concern- 

 ing which a number of general proposi- 

 tions could be postulated. 



It was in 1812 that Cuvier presented to 

 the Academy of Sciences" his celebrated 

 memoir on a new association of the classes 

 of the animal kingdom, proposing a special 

 category which he called branch (em- 

 branchment), and marshaling the classes 

 recognized by him under four primary 

 •groups: (1) the Vertebrates or Animaux 

 vertebres; (2) the Mollusks or Animaux 

 moUusques; (3) the Articulates or Ani- 

 maux articules, and (4) the Eadiates or 

 Animaux rayonnes. These were adopted 

 in the "Regne Animal." In the first 

 (1817) edition, as in the second (1829- 

 1830), nineteen classes were recognized, 

 and in the latter too little consideration was 

 given to the numerous propositions for the 

 improvement of the system that had been 

 suggested and urged meanwhile. 



It has been generally assumed that 

 Cuvier 's work was fully up to the high 

 mark of the times of publication, and for 

 many years the classification which he gave 

 was accepted by the majority of natural- 

 ists as the standard of right. To such ex- 

 tent was this the case that his classification 

 of fishes and the families then defined was 

 retained to at least the penultimate decade 

 of the last century by the first ichthy- 

 ologists of France. Nevertheless the work 

 was quite backward in some respects and 

 exercised a retardative influence in that 

 the preeminent regard in which the great 

 Frenchman was held and the proclivity to 

 follow a leader kept many from paying 

 any attention to superior work emanating 

 from Cuvier 's contemporaries. 



It is by no means always the naturalist 



"Aim. Museum Nat. Hist., Paris, 1812, 19, 

 .73-84. 



who enjoys the greatest reputation for the 

 time being that anticipates future conclu- 

 sions. A Frenchman who held a small 

 place in the world's regard in comparison 

 with Cuvier advanced far ahead of him 

 in certain ideas. Henri Marie Ducrotay 

 de Blainville was the man. When Cuvier 

 (1817) associated the marsupials in the 

 same order as the true carnivores and the 

 monotremes with the edentates, Blainville 

 (1816) contrasted the marsupials and 

 monotremes as Implacentals ("Didel- 

 phes") against the ordinary Placentals 

 ("Monodelphes"). While later (1829) 

 Cuvier still approximated the marsupials 

 to the carnivores, but in a distinct order 

 between the carnivores and the rodents, 

 and still retained the monotremes as a tribe 

 of the edentates, Blainville (1834) recog- 

 nized the marsupials and monotremes as 

 distinct subclasses of mammals and had 

 proposed the names Monodelphes, Didel- 

 phes and Ornithodelphes, still largely used 

 by the most advanced of modern therolo- 

 gists. 



Against the action of Cuvier in ranging 

 all the hoofed mammals in two orders, the 

 pachyderms (including the elephants) and 

 the ruminants, may be cited the philosoph- 

 ical ideas of Blainville (1816), who com- 

 bined the same in two very different 

 orders, the Ongulogrades and the Gravi- 

 grades (elephants), and distributed the 

 normal Ongulogrades under two groups, 

 those with unpaired hoofs (Imparidigi- 

 tates) and those with paired hoofs (Pari- 

 digitates), thus anticipating the classifica- 

 tion of Owen and recent naturalists by 

 very many years. 



Cuvier 's treatment of the amphibia of 

 Linne equally contrasted with Blainville 's. 

 As late as 1829 the great French naturalist 

 still treated the batrachians as a mere 

 order of reptiles of a single family, and 

 the crocodilians as a simple family of 



