SECOND 
GREAT DIVISION 
OF THE 
ANIMAI^ KINGDOM.^ 
ANIMALIA MOLLUSCAA 
Tlie Mollusca have neither an articulated skeleton nor a vertebral 
canal. Their nervous system is not united into a spinal marrow, but 
merely into a certain number of medullary masses distributed in differ- 
* N.B. Linnaeus united all invertebrate animals without articulated limbs in a 
single class, under the name of Vkrmes, dividing them into five orders : the Intes- 
TiNA, embracing some of my Annelides and Intestina ; the Mollusca, comprehend- 
ing my Naked Mollusca, my Echinodermata, and part of my Intestina and Zoophytes ; 
the Testacea, comprising my AfoZZwsca and Annelides icith shells ; the Lythophyta, 
or Stony Corals ; and the Zoophytes, embracing the remainder of the Polypi, some 
of the Intestina and the Infusoria. 
No regard whatever W'as paid to nature in this arrangement, and Brugii^re, 
Encycl. Method., endeavoured to rectify it. He there established six oi’ders of 
W'orms, viz. the Infuriosa ; the Intestina, including the Annelides; the Mol- 
lusca, uniting several of my Zoophytes to my true Mollusca ; the Echinodermata, 
which only comprised Echinus and Asterias ; the Testacea, nearly the same as 
those of Linnseus ; and the Zoophytes, under which name he included the Corals 
only. This arrangement was merely superior to that of Linnseus in the more com- 
plete approximation of the Annelides, and by the distinction it elfected of a part of 
the Echinodermata. 
I proposed a new arrangement of all the invertebrate animals, founded on their 
internal structure, in a paper read before the Societe d’Histoire Naturelle on the 
10th of May 1795, of which my subsequent labours on this part of natural history 
are the development. 
(a) It is proper to inform our readers that in placing this Division of the 
Animal Kingdom after the Fishes, we have made a correction of the confused 
arrangement which exists in the volumes of the French Original, and by which the 
Mollusca and the Zoophytes w^ere placed in juxta position, whilst the Insects fol- 
lowed the latter. Cuvier was under the necessity of yielding to the circumstances 
which imposed upon him the inconvenient plan pursued by him in these volumes ; 
and they arose from his wish to devote the whole of the last two volumes of tlie 
original to the labours of M. Latreille, who has supplied the description of the 
Insects. In his preface to the third volume the author explains his motives, and as 
they have been above substantially stated, we will merely add the remainder of the 
remarks contained in this preface. He states the reasons which delayed the pnbiica- 
VOL. m. B 
