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CHAPTER XXI. 



PEDIGREE AND HISTORY OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



IV. Mammals. 



The System of Mammals according to LinnsBus and Blainville. — Three 

 Sub-classes of Mammals (Ornithodelphia, Didelphia, Monodelphia). — 

 Omithodelphia, or Monotrema. — Beaked Animals (Omithostoma). — 

 Didelphia, or Marsupials. — Herbivorous and Carnivorous Marsupials. — 

 Monodelphia, or Placentalia (Placental Animals). — Meaning of the 

 Placenta. — Tuft Placentalia. — Girdle Placentalia. — Disc Placentalia. — 

 Non-deciduates, or Indecidnata. — Hoofed Animals. — Single and Double- 

 hoofed Animals. — Whales. — Toothless Animals. — Deciduates, or Animals 

 with Deoidua. — Semi-apes. — Gnawing Animals. — Pseudo-hoofed Ani- 

 mals. — Insectivora. — Beasts of Prey. — Bats. — Apes. 



There are only a few points in the classification of 

 organisms upon which naturalists have always agreed. 

 One of these few undisputed points is the privileged 

 position of the class of Mammals at the head of the animal 

 kingdom. The reason of this privilege consists partly 

 in the special interest, also in the various uses and the 

 many pleasures, which Mammals, more than all other 

 animals, offer to man, and partly in the circumstance 

 that man himself is a member of this class. For however 

 differently in other respects man's position in nature and 

 in the system of animals may have been regarded, yet no 

 naturalist has ever doubted that man, at least from a purely 



