ORDER CARNASSIEll. 263 



small difficulty, according to all the systems hitherto re- 

 ceived. It has, by turns, been attached to the Carnassiers, 

 the Plantigrades, and the Quadrumana ; while, at the same 

 time, it was acknowledged that, properly speaking, it be- 

 longed to none of them. It is not, perhaps, going too far 

 to say, that it seems to be the type of a new gr,and division, 

 equal in rank and importance to any of those now men- 

 tioned. 



To judge by its general physiognomy, and, in some 

 points, by its natural disposition, it might be taken for a 

 Lemur. But its organs of mastication and of motion, are 

 different. Its toes, claws, incisors, and canines, approach it 

 to the Carnassiers ; but then its molar teeth entirely flat, and 

 its prehensile tail, have no relation to these animals ; and if 

 some of its traits connect it with the less carnivorous genera 

 of the Plantigrades, such as the Bears, and Coatis, its 

 physiognomy, and many points of its disposition, render it 

 altogether different. The most probable conjecture seems 

 to be that, under one point of view, its natural place would 

 be immediately after the Quadrumana, between which ani- 

 mals and the Carnivora, it might establish a new link of 

 connexion, as the Galagos do between the Quadrumana and 

 the Insectivora. According to this sort of analogy, the 

 Roussettes would no longer exhibit an anomaly among the 

 Cheiroptera : they might be detached from them to form 

 an intermediate step between them and the omnivorous 

 Plantigrades. 



Thus, we see, successively realized, every possible combi- 

 nation of organic life, whose infinite forms run as naturally 

 into each other, as the threads which compose the tissue 

 of an immense and ingenious piece of net- work. Indeed, 

 there is no subject of more curious speculation than the ex- 

 istence of these connecting links between the various orders, 

 genera, and species of living beings. 



Examples of this description, will be found repeatedly 



