240 . CLASS MAMMALIA. 



malia. This animal was not recognised as a Bear. De- 

 prived of his incisors by the effects of age, he seemed to 

 belong to the order of the Edentata, and the genus of the 

 Sloths, and his figure was published as we have seen under 

 the name of Bradypus. This error also shews the bigotted 

 spirit in which the Linnaean system was applied, and how 

 far the admission of arbitrary authority and rules into 

 sciences which depend on observation is calculated to mis- 

 lead and even paralyze the judgment. The story is worth 

 recording : — • 



In the year 1790, an old individual which had lost the 

 incisor teeth was shewn in England. Arbitrary systems so 

 much prevailed here at that time, that Pennant and Shaw, 

 founding their opinion on this accidental loss of the inci- 

 sors, pronounced the animal to be a Sloth, and called it 

 Bradypus Ursinus, at the same time that they could not 

 have avoided observing that in its motions it had nothing 

 analogous to the genus in which they placed it. Illiger, 

 following their notions, formed of it his genus Prochylus. 



Mr. F. Buchanan, in his Journey from Madras through 

 the Countries of Mysore, fyc, published in 1807, was the first 

 to announce that this pretended Sloth was no other than a 

 Bear of the Indian mountains. There is in the Museum of 

 the College of Surgeons, the cranium of the individual 

 above-mentioned, and which has all the generic characters 

 of the Ursus deprived of its incisive teeth, the alceoli of 

 which, however, are perfectly visible. MM. de Blamville 

 and Tiedman confirmed the observation of Mr. Buchanan. 

 The first gave it the name of Ursus Labiatus, the second of 

 Ursus Longirostris. Previous to a more particular descrip- 

 tion of this animal, we may as well notice that it is the 

 opinion of M. Alfred Duvaucel, that there are two other 

 species of Indian Bears. One is the Malayanus, which we 

 have described ; the other has been seen only in Nepaul 

 and the mountains of Silhet by MM. Wallich and Duvancel, 



