176 EDENTATA 
forms this is linked on to the other groups. It is commonly assumed 
that the Lemurs are nothing more than inferior Primates, but the 
interval between them in the actual fauna of the world is very great, 
and our knowledge of numerous extinct types recently discovered 
in America, said to be intermediate in characters, is not yet 
sufficient to enable us to form a definite opinion upon the subject. 
The Edentata may be taken first as standing in some respects 
apart from all the others; and the Primates must be placed at the 
head of the series. The position of the others is quite arbitrary, as 
none of the hitherto proposed associations of the orders into larger 
groups stand the test of critical investigation, and paleontological 
researches have already gone far to show that they are all modifica- 
tions of a common heterodont, diphyodont, pentadactylate form. 
Order EDENTATA. 
The name assigned to this group (which some zoologists think 
ought rather to be ranked as a subclass! than an order) by Cuvier 
is often objected to as inappropriate—for although some of the 
members are edentulous, others have very numerous teeth—and the 
Linnean name Bruta is occasionally substituted. But that term is 
quite as objectionable, especially since the group to which Linnzus 
applied it is by no means equivalent to the order as now understood, 
as the names of the genera contained in it, viz. Elephas, Trichechus, 
Bradypus, Myrmecophaga, Manis and Dasypus, indicate. It contained, 
in fact, all the animals then known which are comprised in the 
modern groups of Proboscidea, Sirenia and Edentata together with 
the Walrus, one of the Carnivora. If retained at all, it should 
rather belong to the Proboscidea, as Elephas stands first in the 
list of genera in the Systema Nature. Cuvier’s order included the 
Ornithorhynchus and Echidna, the structure of which was then im- 
perfectly known, and which are now by common consent removed 
to an altogether different section of the class; but otherwise its 
limits are those now adopted. The name Edentata is so generally 
used, and its meaning so well understood, that it would be un- 
desirable to change it now ; in fact similar reasons might be assigned 
for ceasing to use nearly all the other current ordinal designations, 
for it might be equally well objected that all Carnivora are not 
flesheaters, many of the Marsupialia have not pouches, and so 
forth. 
If the teeth are not always absent, they invariably exhibit 
certain imperfections, which are indeed almost the only common 
characters binding together the various extinct and existing members 
of the order. These are—that they are homodont and, with the 
1 The name Paratheria has heen suggested for this proposed subclass 
