Classification of Animals. 561 



loose naked shin that connects the limbs, and supports them in their 

 leaps from tree to tree, as well as their nocturnal habits, and insect- 

 food, lead directly to the Vesper tilionidce or bats, the most aberrant 

 family of the order, and constituting its suctorial type. His obser- 

 vations on the arrangement of this division are very short, and he 

 adopts without any change the types of the sub-families, as pointed 

 out by Mr Gray, viz Rhinolophince, Phijllostomince, Pteropince, Noc- 

 tilionince, and Vesper tilionince. 



The Ferae or rapacious order, the subtypical division of the Mam- 

 malia follows next in succession, but of this and the remaining 

 orders, he does not profess to enter into a minute analysis of the 

 minor groups, or the location of the genera in their natural series, 

 which would require more space than the nature of the work per- 

 mits, and more labour than he has been able to bestow upon them ; 

 he therefore contents himself with pointing out what he considers 

 to be the primary types and divisions of each, and the mode in which 

 the different circles are connected with each other. The five groups 

 of the Feras are the Felidce and Mustelidce, the Didelphidce, Sore- 

 cidce, and Phocidce ; the two first forming the typical and subtypi- 

 cal families, the three latter the aberrant. He commences his no- 

 tice of them, with the Didelphidce or Opossum family, by which on 

 one side the ferine order is immediately connected with the Qua- 

 dramana, while it leads by the genera Cladobates, or that of Gym- 

 nura, Raffles, to the Sorecidce, and to the Mustelidce, in all proba- 

 bility by the genus Arctitis. Besides the genus Didelphis, re- 

 stricted to the American marsupiate opossums, and the group of 

 which Did. dorsigera is the representative, it contains the Dasyuri 

 or brush-tailed opossums of Australia, &c. The passage from this 

 family to the Sorecidce, which corresponds without variation to the 

 Insectivora of Cuvier, is effected by the Gymnura Rafflesii, an ani- 

 mal bearing a near affinity to the Cladobates or Tupaia of Raffles. 

 Of this family, the shrew mice, genus Sorex, are considered the 

 typical representatives; among its members may be enumerated 

 the hedgehogs (Erinacens), the moles (talpa), and other animals 

 nearly related to them, and belonging to the genera Scalops, Chry- 

 sochloros, Centenes, &c. 



The Phocidce (Seals), the last of the aberrant groups, and con- 

 stituting the aquatic division of the order, stands at present almost 

 isolated from the foregoing families, and, as Mr Swainson observes, 

 almost equally disconnected with the typical Felidae. This, how- 

 ever, we must suppose, arises from our ignorance or non-discovery 



