12 
ILLUSTEATED NATURAL HISTORY. 
and insects, are words familiar to every one, and convey to the minds of those to whom they are 
addressed a more or less definite idea, according to the preconceived notions of the hearer. 
Ingenious authors have, at different times, suggested systems of classification, based upon less 
obvious analogies. Linnaeus, for instance, long since remarked a curious parallel between certain 
classes of quadrupeds and birds, as well in their structure as their habits and destination in the 
great economy of animal life. A late writer of distinction, M. Le Maont, in his Histoire 
Naturelle des Oiseaux^'' has exemplified this in an engraving, which we here insert. On the left 
hand, in the top of a palm-tree, is seen a monkey, and opposite, in a similar situation, is a parrot. 
These are severally at the summit of their orders, by reason of their cerebral development. They 
also approach each other by their capacity for climbing and their habit of living on fruit ; both use 
their limbs for carrying food to their mouth ; both are endowed with the instinct of imitation — the 
one simulating the gestures of mankind, and the other the hiaman voice. 
The next types, seen in the top of the engraving, are flesh-eaters — the leopard and the eagle ; both 
subsisting upon living prey ; both gifted with the keenest faculties for pursuing and seizing it ; both 
supplied with means to rend and devour it ; both remarkable for their ferocity and their rapid and 
powerful muscular action. Both are seen pursuing the same game — the antelope of the wilderness. 
The next types are still flesh-eaters, but of an inferior order, and living upon carrion. One con- 
sists of hyenas, the other of vultures ; both cowardly, but voracious, and finding a relish in putre- 
faction ; both live in the vicinity of man, and serve as scavengers to remove animal matter, that, in 
its decomposition, might beget pestilence ; both are grouped in the engraving as feasting together 
on the same carcase. 
The next group consists of a tupaia — an animal resembling the squirrel — and a starling ; both 
feeding on insects, and living mostly upon the trees. The next consists of the field-mouse and the 
sparrow, feeding upon seeds. The next presents a herd of antelopes — ruminants of complex stom- 
achs, feeding on mountain pasturage, with the gallinaceous nepaul, the two horns of which form a 
close analogy to these animals. 
Next comes the dromedary, a ruminant without horns, and living upon herbs in the desert ; 
and the ostrich, with its capacious crop, also herbivorous, and making the desert its home. 
Finall}^, we have the seal and the penguin, both possessing abortive limbs, and both plunging 
under the water for their food. 
These analogies are curious and striking, but they are not so obvious and useful, for the basis of 
scientific arrangement, as the more common grouping to which we have alluded — that of beasts, 
birds, fishes, and reptiles. The received zoological classification is, in point of fact, to a certain 
extent, coincident with this popular classification. The latter being the result of observation, the 
only foundation of natural history, must necessarily be more or less correct, accordmg to the 
extent to which the different kinds of animals are brought under the notice of mankind ; thus we 
find that tolerably clear notions exist as to the differences between a beast, a bird, and a fish, — 
these being creatures that pass constantly before our eyes ; although, even with respect to these 
groups, we find some erroneous ideas to prevail. 
But with respect to insects, and other lower animals with which mankind at large are not 
familiar, the classification of ordinary language is by no means so precise ; so that Avhile, in the 
former cases, zoology can adopt the popular groups merely by* submitting them to a few modifi- 
cations, in the latter, science is compelled to invent a system of its own. 
This scientific classification is not, however, a mere arbitrary arrangement like that of the 
words in a dictionary, with the sole object of enabling us to find out all that is known of a given 
animal in the shortest possible period of time : it has another and a higher purpose in view — that 
of showing the mutual relations of the various members of the animal kingdom, and tracing, in a 
manner, the steps taken by the Creator in the modification of the same type to suit tlie various, 
conditions in which His creatures were to be placed. 
OF CERTAIN TERMS USED IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
A clear idea of the terms species, variety, gemts, family, tribe, order, class, and division, which arc 
constantly occurring in treatises on natural history, is essential to an understanding of tlie subject. 
