LECTURE 11. Si5 



thod or system, giving his elegant, but too diffuse 

 descriptions without any regular order ©f distri- 

 bution ; and having begun his natural history of 

 Quadrupeds in this manner, he chose to continue 

 it through the whole of his voluminous work, ex- 

 cept in a few instances, in which he seems to have 

 found the necessity of being systematic even in 

 spite of himself. Not contented with this general 

 neglect of all arrangement in his history of Qua- 

 drupeds, Buffon seems to have taken a pleasure in 

 endeavouring to depreciate the merit of systematic 

 arrangement in general, and more particularly 

 that of Linnaeus. Linnaeus, however, appears to 

 have been fully conscious of his own superiority, 

 and to have understood the policy as well as the 

 dignity of literature too well, to exalt into cele- 

 brity the petulant remarks of Buffon by conde- 

 scending to answer them. He even carefully ab- 

 stained from mentioning that author ; not a single 

 quotation from the work of Buffon making its ap- 

 pearance in the whole course of the twelfth edition 

 of the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus. A defect 

 which is very properly remedied in the enlarged 

 edition of that work by Dr. Gmelin. 



The whole class of Mammalia is divided by 



