VI PREFACE. 



these last into families on a new system. The 

 ruminantia I have placed at the end of the quad- 

 rupeds, the sea-cow, among the cetacea. I 

 have varied in some respects, the arrangement 

 of the carnivora. The ouistites I have wholly 

 separated from the simias, and I have pointed 

 out an analogy between the pouched animals 

 and other digitated mammalia, entirely accord- 

 ing to my own anatomical researches. On the 

 recent and profound labours of my friend and 

 colleague, M. Geoff. St. Hilaire, I have founded 

 my observations on the quadrumana and chi- 

 roptera. 



" The researches of my brother, M. Frederic 

 Cuvier, on the teeth of the carnivora and others 

 have been of great use to me in arranging the 

 sub-genera. Though the genera of the late 

 M. Illiger are but the results of the same 

 researches and of those of some foreign na- 

 turalists, I have generally adopted his names, 

 whenever my sub-genera could be compre- 

 hended under his genera ; I also eagerly 

 adopted the excellent divisions of M. de Lace- 

 pede in this kind ; but the characters which I 

 have marked as indicative of all the various 

 degrees, have been all taken from nature, either 

 in the cabinets of anatomy, or the galleries of 

 the Museum. 



" I have pursued a similar plan with the birds. 



