ON ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEMS, &c. 



173 



regard to its bare outlines ; for such a sketch is the whole that our time will 

 allow ; yet if it be found faithful, it will assuredly be found beneficial ; for if 

 the outlines be correctly laid down, the picture may be filled up at our 

 leisure. 



That most sublime and magnificent of all poems, ancient or modern, the 

 Book of Job, establishes, in the most satisfactory manner, that the study of 

 natural history, and especially the history of tlie animal kingdom, was culti- 

 vated at a very early period of the world, — in all probability as early, at least, 

 as the Mosaic epoch, — with a considerable degree of minute attention in 

 regard to various kinds and species ; and the detailed references to the habits 

 and manners of other animals that lie scattered through almost every part of 

 the Hebrew Scriptures, and especially through the book of Psalms, and those 

 of the Prophecies, and the distinct historical notice which is given of the 

 scientific acquaintance of Solomon with this attractive study,* establish, not 

 only that it was attended to at a very early period, but that it was a very 

 favourite and fashionable pursuit for many ages throughout Egypt, Syria, and 

 Arabia. But the first physiologist who, we can say, with any degree of cer- 

 tainty, pointed out the expediency of a methodical arrangement of animals 

 M^as Aristotle. His works upon this subject have reached us ; yet while they 

 prove that he took the same extensive and scientific view of it which he did 

 of all other subjects, to which he directed the wonderful powers of his com- 

 prehensive mind, they prove also, that the study of natural history in Greece 

 had by no means, in his day, kept pace with a variety of other studies ; and 

 that he did not conceive, aided as he was by all the mighty patronage of 

 Alexander the Great, and the concurrent exertions of every other physiolo- 

 gist, that he was in possession of a sufficiency of facts to attempt the same 

 kind of systematic arrangement here, which he is so celebrated for having 

 effected almost every where else. He modestly contented himself, there- 

 fore, with pointing out the important use of such an arrangement as soon as 

 it could be accomplished, and with suggesting a few hints as to the principles 

 upon which it should be constructed. He observes, that the distinctive cha- 

 racters of animals might be taken from the nature of their food, from their 

 actions, their manners, or- their different structures. That their inhabiting 

 land or water, offers a distinction of another sort : and that of land animals, 

 there are some kinds that respire by lungs, as quadrupeds, and others that 

 have no such kind of respiration ; that some are winged, and others wingless; 

 that some possess proper blood, while others are exsanguineous ; that some 

 produce their young by eggs, and these he named oviparous, while others bring 

 them forth naked, and these he called viviparous ; that quadrupeds, again, 

 may, perhaps, be distinguished by the make of the foot, as being of three 

 kinds, undivided, cloven, and digitated, or severed into toes or claws. f 



These, indeed, were mere hints, and only intended as such ; but they were 

 truly valuable and important ; for they roused zoologists to that general com- 

 parison of animal with animal, which could not fail of very essentially ad- 

 vancing the cause of natural history; and have, in different degrees, laid the 

 foundation of almost every methodical arrangement which has since been 

 offered to the world. 



To run over a list of these arrangements would be equally useless and 

 jejune. The writers who have chiefly signalized themselves in this depart- 

 ment, are Gesner, Aldrovandi, Johnston, Ray, Linnaeus, Klein, Lacepede, 

 Blumenbach, and Cuvier; and in particular sections of it, Lamarck, Bloch, 

 Fabricius, Latreille, and Brogniart ; all of whom have flourished since the 

 middle of the sixteenth century ; most of whom have contributed something 

 of importance to a scientific method of studying and distributing animals ; 

 and the most celebrated of whom are Ray, Linneeus, and Cuvier. 



The system of Ray is derived, in its first outlines, from that recommenda- 

 tion of Aristotle, which suggests an attention to the different structures of 

 different descriptions of animal life ; and his observation, that one of these 



♦ 1 Kings, Iv. 33. 



t Arist. Hist. Anim. lib. i, cap. 1, cap. 3, cajo. 6. 



