PRINCIPLES OF NOMENCLATURE. 
65 
now would suspect tliat this creation, so little refined, proceeds in 
greater part from tlie aromas of the Sun ! It is, hoAA ever, the case. 
The series of French Porters contains but two genera, the Horse 
and the Ass. The Mule does not constitute a species, since he 
does not reproduce himself. The dwarf horses of Corsica and 
the Landes constitute true varieties, since they are the productions 
of another planet than Saturn, generator of the horse : two genera, 
three varieties. The series of Ruminants, which I wished to bap- 
tize as Nourishers or Victims, from the lot which the cruelty of 
Man and of other carnivorous creatures assign to it, has also been 
named by the civilizees from the faculty which the animals of this 
family possess of chewing the cud or ruminating. It bifurcates in 
two principal groups, called the horned and the branched. I can- 
not accept the denomination of solipede for the horse, nor that of 
pachyderm for the wild boar, but ask no better than to accommo- 
date with that of ruminant for the ox and his congenera. The 
group of horned ruminants takes its name from its head armor, 
vulgarly called horn, Avhich is at once ornament and defense. 
This horn is permanent, which dislinguishes it from the armor 
of the branched ruminants. 
We meet, nevertheless, some good families of domestic rumin- 
ants, which, by deference for their master, Avhom the horn dis- 
pleased, have left it off. This group now counts in France only 
seven varieties, of Avhich three are domestic : the bull, husband 
of the cow and father of the calf ; the goat, and the sheep. The 
ox and mutton are not particular species, but only the uncles of 
the calves and the lambs, whose fathers are the bulls and rams. 
Four species still live in the wild state: the wild goat of the 
Pyrenees, source of the domestic goat ; the Avild sheep of Corsica, 
source of the ram ; the chamois and isard, which perhaps have 
also ancient links of relationship Avith the she goat. Absent, by 
extermination, the bison and urus. The group of branched ru- 
minants receives its name from its head armor, like that of the 
horned. With them it seems to vegetate and ramify like a branch. 
It is caducous, that is to say, it falls and shoots out anew every 
year at a fixed epoch. The French group of branched ruminants, 
as well as the horned, has great losses to deplore. It regrets the 
