ORDER EDENTATA. 267 



the Edentata on the other. Boddaert removed them from 

 the Lemurs, and ranged them with the Bats. The Baron 

 first, in his Tableau Elementaire d' Hist. Nat., formed them 

 into a separate genus of Edentata ; and afterwards, in the 

 Tables attached to his Lessons of Comparative Anatomy, 

 he established the family of Tardigrada, containing these 

 animals alone, and constituting the link between the Eden- 

 tata and the Pachydermata. Blumenbach placed them at 

 the head of the Mammalia Fissipedes Edentata, which were, 

 according to him, the Ant-eaters, Pangolins, and Tatous. 

 M. Lacepede has composed of them his seventh order of 

 Mammalia, constituted of those animals which are digiti- 

 grade, and which have only the denies laniarii et molares. 

 M. Dumeril, in his Zool. Analyt., composes his ninth fa- 

 mily of them, called Tardigrada. Illiger places them in a 

 particular order, which he puts after the Ruminantia and 

 before the Edentata. In fine, our author, in the Animal 

 Kingdom has placed them as we have seen, with much 

 propriety at the head of the Edentata. Illiger divides his 

 order Tardigrada into three genera, which M. Desmarest 

 considers as sub-genera, but which we, with our author, 

 can only consider as species. The first is the Az (Bradypus 

 Tridactylus ;) the second is the Unau (Brad. Didact.) the 

 Cholcepus of Illiger ; and the third, the Prochilus of Illiger, 

 and Ursine Sloth of Shaw, which we have already, we trust 

 satisfactorily, proved to have no pretensions to be classed 

 with the other two, but decidedly to belong to the Ursi. M. 

 de Blainville (Nouv. Diet. Syst. des Anim.) Bull, de la Soc. 

 Phil., 1816, having observed many characters in common 

 between the Bradypi and Quadrumana, places them in this 

 order as anomalous quadrumana organized for climbing. 

 Of this distribution it is impossible to approve, as the 

 genus Bradypus is destitute of the essential characteristic of 

 the Quadrumana. We might as well arrange the Squirrels 

 and many of the Marsupiata with the Simiae and Lemurs. 



