ORDER EDENTATA. 321 



include more forms than those of the two genera at present 

 known. Should this become the case to any extent, a re- 

 formation of these animals will probably become matter of 

 propriety in every point of view, and the novice who will 

 venture into the study of organized, or even of animated 

 creation, must submit to charge his memory with a still 

 greater extension of terms of art, as well as of objects of 

 nature. 



If the Monotremes be considered as analogous to, or as 

 connected with, the Marsupial animals, their dislocation 

 seems unnatural, and it is to these, as Mammalia, that 

 they most approximate ; and if the varied dentition of the 

 several genera of Marsupial animals be not considered, a 

 sufficient objection to their association with the order in 

 which we find them, the edentatous peculiarities of the 

 Monotremes seems to form no bar against placing these 

 animals with them. 



In one point of view, however, the Monotremes are 

 conveniently placed as the third tribe of Edentata ; if we 

 refer to the other two, we cannot but observe a decided 

 leaning, or inclination, in the species, to deviate from the 

 class to which they belong, to vertebrated animals lower in 

 the general scale than the Mammalia — that is, to the 

 reptiles ; the helpless imbecility, mere animal vegeta- 

 tion, the mental as well as bodily apathy of the Sloth, 

 bespeak, as it were, the gradual departure of that mam- 

 miferous genus, by a gentle inclination, to an inferior type; 

 in short, the- Sloth has many analogies with the reptiles ; 

 in the Armadillos, and still more in the Pangolin, the ana- 

 logy is so far increased, that the latter in particular assume 

 the very dress and covering of the reptiles. Hence it seems 

 natural to place by the side of these, animals which evince 

 so decided a departure from their class, as the group of Mo- 

 notremes which are equally if not more remarkable in this 



