320 
another ; and you will probably imagine that this acknowledgment 
can hardly be made without occasioning me to experience some degree 
of mortification. But the truth is, that knowing, that as you proceed 
you must be highly pleased, I am thoroughly satisfied with merely 
recounting to you the most prominent particulars of those important 
discoveries, which have rewarded the patient and unabating exertions 
of Cuvier. If it should occur to you that the name of this justly cele- 
brated anatomist should too frequently meet your eye in the following 
pages, remember that this necessarily results from the number and 
importance of his discoveries, and consider, that if we were giving a 
history of galvanism, of the alkalies, earths, metals, &c. how frequently 
in like manner, must the pen be engaged in reporting the important 
discoveries of our illustrious Davy. To have admitted less of the dis- 
coveries of Cuvier, in the present work, would have been unjust to those 
many who cannot obtain the voluminous, expensive, and almost pro- 
hibited works in which they are contained. To have introduced less 
would indeed have been to have sparingly employed the only light 
almost which has ever been thrown on this most interesting subject. 
I must here also crave your attention, while I excuse myself for 
again departing from that classification which has been so long esta- 
blished by the truly great Linnaeus. The natural method of classifica- 
tion, employed by Dumeril, Zoologie Analytique, ou Methode Nutu- 
relle de Classification des Animaux, par A. M. C. Dumeril, is gene- 
rally adopted by Cuvier ; and his discoveries are related in the nomen- 
clature, as well as in the order of that arrangement. Hence, although 
it will not be difficult for those who wish toadheretothe Linnsean system 
to understand, with a little explanation, to what species, &c. every ob- 
servation is intended to refer, yet it would be impossible, without con- 
siderable confusion, to give the discoveries of Cuvier in the terms, or 
agreeable to the arrangement, of that system ; since his observations 
refer to particular families which are composed of genera, which in the 
Linnsean arrangement are dispersed under several different orders. 
