THE 



FIFTH ORDER 



OP THE 



MAMMALIA 



THE EDENTATA, 



Or quadrupeds without incisive teeth, will form our 

 last order of unguiculated animals. Although as- 

 sociated by characters merely negative, they have, 

 nevertheless, some mutual positive relations, namely, 

 very large nails, which embrace the extremities of 

 the toes, and approach more or less the nature of 

 hoofs ; a certain inertness or want of agility, aris- 

 ing from the obvious organization of their limbs. 

 There are, however, certain intervals in these re- 

 lations by which the order may be divided into 

 three tribes. 



The Tardigrades 



will form the first. They have a short face. Their 

 name is derived from their excessive slowness, the 

 consequence of a construction truly heteroclite, in 

 which Nature seems to have amused herself by the 

 production of something imperfect and grotesque. 

 The only existing genus, or 



