SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
63 
the monument of London and nearly equalling that giant 
pillar in circumference,—when we contrast the little newt 
of our ditches with the bones of one described by Scheuch- 
zer, equalling in size those of a human being, and actually 
paraded before the scientific world as the skeleton of a 
man who had witnessed the universal deluge, — when we 
regard the wondrous and most anomalous forms of Ichthy¬ 
osauri and Plesiosauri,—when we glean from geology such 
irresistible evidence that this earth was once the abode of 
multitudes of reptiles, which, for thousands of years, oc¬ 
cupied it to the entire exclusion of man and all the pla¬ 
cental animals,—and then, turning our eyes to the scattered 
and persecuted remnant of the reptile world now existent, 
we can scarcely feel surprised at the difficulty experienced 
by the systematist in tracing, amid that remnant, the same 
continuous series he finds among the placental animals, 
so cherished by him for his own accommodation. 
Yet, though I acknowledge myself totally unable, both 
from a deficiency of materials and deficiency of knowledge, 
to cope with the detail of arrangement in these proposed 
classes, it must not be imagined that I admit the slightest 
doubt as to the existence of those parallels so obvious in 
the warm-blooded classes. It is highly probable that si¬ 
milarities which in one group shall be most obvious, in 
another may be traced with difficulty; but the parallels, 
being almost invariably dependant on food or mode of 
progression, must naturally in some measure pervade all 
classes, unless restricted to a single element. Yet even, 
in such instances, parallels will doubtless be found between 
the divisions of two groups which are thus equally restrict¬ 
ed ; in the present instance, supposing the Cataphracta 
and Squamata to be equivalent classes, a similar reptile 
