8 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 
given on the Quadrumana and the Bats is based on the recent and profound labours of 
my friend and colleague M. GeolFroy de St. Hilaire. The researches of my brother, 
M. Frederic Cuvier, on the teeth of the Carnaria and Rodentia, have proved highly 
useful to me in forming the sub-genera of these two orders. Notwithstanding the 
genera of the late M. Illiger are but the results of these same studies, and of those of 
some foreign naturalists, I have adopted his names whenever his genera corresponded 
with my sub-genera. M. de Lacepede has also discerned and indicated many excellent 
divisions of this degree, which I have been equally compelled to adopt ; but the cha- 
racters of all the degrees and all the indications of species have been taken from nature, 
either in the Cabinet of Anatomy or in the galleries of the Museum. 
The same plan was pursued with respect to the Birds. I have examined with the 
closest attention more than four thousand individuals in the Museum ; I arranged them 
according to my views in the public gallery more than five years ago, and all that is 
said of this class has been drawn from that source. Thus, any resemblance which my 
sub-divisions may bear to some recent descriptions, is on my part purely accidental.* 
Naturalists, I hope, will approve of the numerous sub-genera which I have deemed 
it necessary to make among the birds of prey, the PasserincB, and the Shore-birds ; 
they appear to me to have completely elucidated genera hitherto involved in much 
confusion. I have marked, as exactly as I could, the accordance of these subdivisions 
with the genera of MM. de Lacepede, Meyer, Wolf, Temminck, and Savigny, and 
have referred to each of them all the species of which I could obtain a very positive 
knowledge. This laborious work will prove of value to those who may hereafter 
attempt a true history of birds. The splendid works on Ornithology published within 
a few years, and those chiefly of M. le Vaillant, which are filled with so many 
interesting observations, together with M. Vieillot’s, have been of much assistance to 
me in designating the species which they represent. 
The general division of this class remains as 1 published it in 1798, in my Tableau 
EUmentaire 
I have thought proper to preserve for the Reptiles, the general division of my friend 
M. Brongniart ; but I have prosecuted very extensive anatomical investigations to arrive 
at the ulterior subdivisions. M. Oppel, as I have already stated, has partly taken 
advantage of these preparatory labours ; and whenever my genera finally agreed with 
his, I have noticed the fact. The work of Daudin, indifferent as it is, has been useful 
to me for indications of details ; but the particular divisions which I have given in the 
genera of Monitors and Geckos, are the product of my own observations on a great 
number of Reptiles recently brought to the Museum by MM. Peron and Geoffroy. 
My labours on the Fishes will probably be found to exceed those which I have 
bestowed on the other vertebrated animals. Our Museum having received a vast 
number of Fishes since the celebrated work of M. de Lacepede was published, I have been 
enabled to add many subdivisions to those of that learned naturalist, also to combine 
several species differently, and to multiply anatomical observations. I have also had 
* This observation not having been sufficiently understood abroad, 
I am obliged to repeat it here, and openly to declare a fact witnessed 
by thousands in Paris ; it is this, that all the birds in the gallery of 
the Museum were named and arranged according to my system, in 
1811. Those even of my subdivisions to which I had not yet given 
names, were marked by particular signs. This is my date. Inde- 
pendently of this, my first volume was printed in the beginning of 
1816. Four volumes are not printed so quickly as a pamphlet of a few 
pages. I say no more. (Note to Edit. 1829). 
t I only mention this because an estimable naturalist, M. Vieillot, 
has, in a recent work, attributed to himself the union of the Pica and 
Passeres. I had printed it in 1798, together with my other arrange- 
ments, so as to render them public in the Museum since 1811 and 1813. 
