CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE MAMMALIA. 
31 
Linmeus had a much clearer and more comprehensive notion 
of classification than his predecessors. He referred all 
divisions of one rank to one standard, and as, in botany 
he took the stamens as the standard of classes and the pistils 
as that of orders, so in the Mammalia he founded his primary 
divisions on the form of the extremities—whether clawed, 
hoofed, or unarmed—and his secondary divisions on the 
arrangement of the teeth. Among his Unguiculates, while 
the Primates have teeth of the three forms, molars, canine, 
and incisors, equally developed, the Bruta depend upon the 
molars, the Ferae upon the canine, and the Glires upon the 
incisors. 
Fifty years after Linnaeus came Cuvier, the great 
French naturalist. Freeing himself from the Aristotelian 
views, he studied the anatomy of animals, and founded a 
new classification upon the relationship of species in more 
fundamental matters than mere external organs. He divided 
the Mammalia into nine orders, viz.— 
Biman a. Man. 
Quadrumana.. Monkeys. 
Carnaria. Flesh-eaters: Cats, dogs, &c. 
Marsupialia... Marsupials: Opossum, kangaroo, &c. 
Bodentia. Bodents : Hares, rabbits, &c. 
Edentata. Toothless animals : Sloths, &c. 
Pachydermata Thick-skinned animals: Horses, elephants, &e. 
Buminantia... Buminants : Oxen, sheep, &c. 
Cetacea. Whales, &c. 
At first sight this does not seem very different from the 
system of Linmeus. But, in reality, although the names 
of the orders are still taken mostly from external organs 
and characters, the groups are much more accurately assorted, 
and two new ones—the Marsupials and Edentates—are 
established, whose anatomy is so distinct and remarkable 
that one wonders how Linmeus could have found place for 
them in any of his orders. 
During the present century rapid progress has been made 
in comparative anatomy by such men as Owen, Milne- 
Edwards, and Huxley ; and even Cuvier's system is now left 
far behind. 
The arrangement adopted by Professor Flower in the new 
edition of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica ” makes eleven 
orders, distributed thus :— 
Primates.Man and monkeys, 
Carnivora . Dogs, cats, &c. 
Ungulata. Hoofed animals: Horses, oxen, deer, 
elephants, &c. 
