à large tuberculous almost as long as wide above. The head is compressed, and the tongue somewhat rough. Distinguished from the rest of its kindred by having palmated feet, and a tail flattened horizontally.

Common otter, mustella lutra of Linné.
Sea otter, M. lutris of Linné.

Group 2. Fera molaribus ad lacerandum aptiores. This second subdivision of digitigrade animals have the two tubercles flattened behind the upper flesh tooth, which has a wide stem. They are feeders on flesh, without showing any courage proportioned to their strength, but live upon dead carcasses. They all have a small cœcum.

Gen. Canis of Linné.-The dog. Have three molar teeth above and four below, a tuberculous tooth behind each flesh tooth. Their first upper tuberculous is very large, and the flesh tooth above

has but one small tubercle within. But the lower one has its backward edge quite tuberculous; tongue soft; fore feet with five toes, hind with only four.

Common dog, canis familiaris.
Wolf, C. lupus.

Black wolf, C. lycaon.

Red wolf, C. Mexicanus.
Jackall, C. aureus.
Common fox, C. vulpes.

Small yellow fox, C. corsac of Gmelin. Pale yellow gray; sometimes with black upon the base of the tail; tip black. Common in Asia. Three colored fox, C. cinereo argenteus. Blue fox, C. lagopus.

Viverra.

Linguâ horridâ gradiendo unguibus sese atollentibus. Three false molar teeth above, four below, of which the first sometimes falls out. Two tuberculous teeth very large above; one only below; tubercles jutting at the inner edge of the inferior flesh tooth, while the rest of the tooth is more or less tuberculous. Their tongue is bristled with sharp and rough papillæ. Their nails half elevate themselves in walking; near their anus is a pouch, where appropriate glands secrete a peculiar humor.

Gen. 1. Viverra of Cuvier.-Mustela specu duplice sub ano unguentum sudante. Civets proper. Pouch deep; situated between the anus and the organs of generation, and is divided into two sacs which are replete with a copious unguentum of a strong musky odor.

The civet, viverra civetta of Linné. Gray; with a brown or black spot; tail brown, shorter than the body; whole length of the back and tail crested with a mane that can be elevated at the pleasure of the animal.

Zibet; viverra zibitha of Linné. Gray, clouded with brown; tail long, ringed with black.

Gen. 2. Genetta of Cuvier.-Mustela specu haud manifeste sudante. The genets. Pouch reduced to a single slight depression formed by the jutting forth of the glands, and almost without sensible excretion, although it has the odor very manifest.

Common genet; viverra genetha of Linné. Gray, with small round black spots, with a tail ringed, streaked with black.

Viverra fossa of Buffon. Fawn where the genet has black; almost without rings upon the tail. Gen. 3. Herpestes of Iliger.-Mustela specu amplissima anum fovente. Mangonolis of Cuvier.

The ichneumon. Has a simple but very capacious pouch, at the bottom of which is found the anus. Common ichneumon of Egypt; viverra ichneunon of Linné. Gray; with a long tail terminated by a lock of hair; larger than our cats; fringed like the martins.

Ichneumon of the Indies; viverra mongos.

pointed and the hair gray or brown, uniform in the Cape ichneumon. V. Cafra. Both have the tail latter, striped with black in the former.

Gen. 4. Rhyzana of Iliger.-Mustela quaternis digitis ex pedibus anterioribus. The suricates. The resemble in some particulars the ichneumons, and borrow of them the tints and transverse stripings of the pile; but what discriminates them from all the carnivorous animals already described consists in having only four toes upon their fore feet. Group 3. Feræ molaribus ad lacerandum aptissimis.

These have no small teeth behind the thick molar teeth. This subdivision comprehends creatures of the most cruel and voracious of this order.

Gen. 1. Hyana of Storr.-Canis specu sub ano. The hyenas. They have three false molar teeth above and four below, all flat and conical and remarkably large their upper flesh tooth has a small tubercle within and before, but the lower one wants it, and presents only two strong cutting points: this stout armature enables them to break the strongest bones of their prey. Tongue rough; all their feet have four toes like the suricates, and under the anus there is a deep and glandulous pouch. Way of life nocturnal, voracious, and among the graves in search of dead carcasses, their favorite diet.

Striped hyana; canis hyæna of Linné.
Spotted hyæna; C. crocata of Linné.

Gen. 2. Felis of Linné.-Ungues molliter reponentes. Cats. They are of all the carnivorous animals the most strongly armed: the muzzle is short and round; grinders short. The chief character of discrimination is the faculty of withdrawing their claws through the office of certain elastic ligaments; and thus, by sheathing them from injury, keep them sharp and ready to gripe their prey. They have two false molar teeth above and two below; their upper flesh tooth has on the inside three hollows and a flat stem, the lower two are pointed and cutting without any stem; they have only a very small tuberculous upper tooth, without any thing to correspond to it below.

The lion, felis leo: tail terminating in a tuft of hair.

The tiger, F. tigris.

The jaguar or once, F. onça: black ocellated spots. The panther, F. pavetus: black clustering spots. The leopard, F. leopardus: small spots.

The hunting leopard, F. jubata: hair of the neck longer, and of a deeper dye than the rest of the body.

The puma, F. discolor: red, with small spots of a deeper hue.

The ocelet, F. pardalis: gray black margined, tawny spots disposed in oblique bands.

The black panther, F. melas: black spotted with a deeper tinge.

The lynx, F. lynx: tawny, spotted with black. Canada lynx, F. Canadensis of Geoffroy: whitish gray with a few spots.

Furrias cat, F. rufa of Güld: tawny, red tinged with brown.

Lynx of the marches, F. caracal: vinous red.
Serval, F. serval: yellow black spots.
Jaquarondi, Azz.

Common cat, F. catus: gray brown, waves of a deeper color.

ORDER VII.-AMPHIBIA.

Feræ corpore atque membris ad natandum natura comparatis. Amphibious animals form the third and last of the families into which Cuvier divides the carnivora; they have the feet short and generally enveloped in the skin, which therefore cannot on land serve them for instruments of progression; but, as the intervals between the toes are filled by membranes, they answer well the purpose of oars in swimming. Body elongated; spine very moveable, and provided with muscles that turn with great force. These creatures do not come to shore, except for the sake of basking in the The abdominal basin is narrow. The hairs sleek and depressed close to the skin, indicating that they are good swimmers, which all the particularities of their anatomy confirm.

sun.

Group 1. Phoca of Linné.

From four to six cutting teeth above, four below; canine pointed grinders twenty-two or twenty four, all cutting or conical without having any part tuberculous; five toes on each foot. Phocæ sine auribus externis.

Gen. 1. Phoca of Linné.-Common seal. Gray yellow, more or less spotted or waved with brown, according to the age, becoming white by age. Phoca Greenlandica: gray yellow, spotted with

brown when young.

P. monachus: brown black, belly white. Medi

when angry.

P. cristata of Gmelin: seven feet long, with a sort of moveable hood up the crown of its head. Gen. 2. Oterites of Peron. Auribus externis. Four cutting teeth above, mean with a double edge, exterior simple and smaller, four below forked; all the grinders are simply conical.

Phoca jubata of Gmelin. Sea lion. Fifteen feet long and upwards; tawny; the neck of the male clothed with hairs longer and more crisped than those which cover the body. Pacific Ocean. Phoca ursina: seven feet in length, with a mane varying from brown to white. Pacific Ocean.

Group 2. Trichecus. Walrus of Linné. These resemble the phoca in their limbs and in the general form of the body; but differ very much in their teeth; lower jaw wants the canine teeth, and adopts a size and a compressed form to adapt itself to the monstrous canine teeth, or tusks, which confine it on each side. These tusks derive their origin from the upper jaw, and point downwards sometimes to the length of six feet, and are of proportionate thickness. The magnitude of the alveolæ necessary for the lodgment of them elevates the whole front of the upper jaw, and form an inflated muzzle; in consequence the nostrils take a vertical direction upwards, and do not terminate at the snout, as in some other animals. Grinders short and truncated obliquely.

Walrus. Trichecus rosmarinus. In a paper read before the Royal Society on the 24th of March, 1821, Sir E. Home deemed that he had

discovered a faculty in the hind flipper of the walrus analogous to that in the foot of a fly; which, by the contractility of the margin, forms itself into a cup when the pressure is lightened, and thence, by creating a vacuum, enables the insect to resist the force of gravity. But the flippers which were examined on board the Blossom seemed too full of protuberances to admit the supposition of a vacuum, which, when they were submitted to that able comparative anatomist, they had lost by the operation of the saline pickle. The writer remembers that his fisherman at Oahu once brought him a goby which the honest fellow had sprinkled with salt to keep it from decaying. Upon examining the fish the flat fin, formed by the union of the two abdominal fins, appeared so much like a cup that he asked the fellow if the fish was in the habit of adhering to stones at the bottom of the streams: the answer was 'No; and I am surprised that a person of much sagacity should not be better acquainted with the usual effects of salt.'

ORDER VIII.-MARSUPIALIA.

Feræ utero vicario. A family, says Cuvier, embracing many orders. The most prominent their young characteristic is the premature production of hardly comparable to that which fœtuses reach ones, in a state of development a few days after conception. Incapable of limbs or external organs, the little ones attach movement, and with scarcely the rudiments of themselves to the paps of their dams and remain fixed in that position till their form is unfolded in a degree corresponding to that of other animals when they forsake the womb of their mother. Almost the whole of the skin of the abdomen is dis

posed in shape of a funnel, around the teats, wherein the immature embryo is preserved as in a second matrix, and which even affords a place of shelter when danger threatens. Two bones attached to the pelvis, and interposed between the muscles of the abdomen, afford support to this pouch; they are found, however, in moles where the folds which of the animals pertaining to this order has not form the pouch are hardly perceptible. The matrix only an opening by an orifice in the bottom of the vagina, but it communicates with this canal by twe that the premature birth of the young ones is owing lateral tubes resembling handles. It would seem to this singular organisation. The males have the scrotum before the penis. Two young ones may be seen preserved in spirits in the museum of the Hasler Hospital, with the paps of their dam to which they are attached.

Family 1. PEDIMANA.

Dentibus horridis cum pollice qui ad manum apponi potest. Canine teeth long, incisors small. hind molar teeth rough with points; way of lik carnivorous; thumb applicable.

Gen. 1. Didelphis of Linné.-Auribus maximis, cauda occupante. Opossum. Six incisors above, whereof the mean are a little longer than the rest ; seven below; three anterior grinders compressed; the four hind ones rough with points; upper ones irregular; lower oblong; in all fifty. Tongue bristled; tail prehensile and partly naked. Mouth very wide and large naked ears give them a peculiar physiognomy. Smell offensive; nocturnal; motion slow; rest on trees; pursue birds, small quadrupeds, insects, &c., not disdaining fruit. Cœcum middling size without swellings.

Didelphis Virginiana.
D. marsupialis.
D. cancrivora.

D.

opossum.

D. cayopollin.
D. philander.
D. dorsigera.
D. murina.

D. brachyoura.
D. palmata.

Gen. 2. Dusurus of Geoffroy.-Pollice nascente cauda non occupante. Two incisors and four grinders at least in each jaw, like the opussums, and four teeth in all; tail clothed with long hair; not prehensile; thumb behind very much shorter and like a tubercle. Found in New Holland; live on carcasses, insects; enter houses, where their voracity is very troublesome.

Didelphis synocephale of Harris. About the size of a dog.

D. ursina. Long black thick hairs, with some spots.

Dasurus macrourus of Geoffroy. Van Dieman's Land. Large as a martin; tail long as the body; brown spotted.

D. arme de mange. D. viverra of Shaw.

Gen. 3. Parameles of Geoffroy.-Thylacis of Iliger. Hind thumb short, like the dasuri, and the two fingers which follow united by the skin as far as the nails; the thumb and little toe before are simply tubercles. The upper incisors are ten in number, of which the external are sharp and spreading, but only nine in the lower jaw; grinders similar to those of the opussums. All their teeth when reckoned amount to forty. The tail is clothed with hair and not prehensile. They inhabit Australasia; and their large and almost straight nails bespeak their use in forming burrows in the earth; their hind feet are very long to augment their speed. Long nosed.

Parameles nasutus of Gmelin. With a very long nose and pointed ears, and a hairy covering of gray brown. It resembles a tenrec at first sight.

Familia 2. DIGITIS DUOBUS QUASI INVOLUCRO COOPERTIS.

The second family of the marsupial animals bear in their lower jaw two long and large incisive teeth, sharp and cutting at their edge, bowed outwards, to which correspond six in the upper jaw. The canine teeth in the upper jaw are also long and pointed; but in the lower these teeth become so inconsiderable as to be sometimes hidden by the gum; some of the genera are entirely destitute of them. Their food in a great measure consists in fruit; and their intestines and even the cœcum are longer than those of the opussums. They all possess one large thumb or great toe, generally so far separated from the rest as to appear directed backwards, like the corresponding claw in birds. These great toes are without nails, and two of the neighbouring toes are mutually joined by the skin as far as the last phalangial bone. This structure has lent them the name of phalangista.

Gen 1. Phalangista of Cuvier.-Caudâ occupante. Phalangers proper. They have not the skin of the flanks extended into wings. In each jaw there are found four molar teeth in each side backwards, which present four points respectively, and by this means, when viewed together, form two ranks of

points. A large compressed conical tooth before; between this and the canine teeth in the upper jaw are two small pointed teeth which correspond above to the minute teeth before-mentioned. Their tail is prehensile. Some of them are scaly. These animals inhabit the Moluccas, where they live upon trees, and search for insects and fruits; when they see a man they suspend themselves by the tail, and continue fixed in this position till they drop down with fatigue. They diffuse a very disagreeable odor; nevertheless their flesh is sometimes eaten. They are recognised by their light; gray spotted with black, red with gray, brown the whole length of the back, and a white rump; but the species have not been sufficiently discriminated, but have generally been comprehended under the denomination of dedelphis orientalis.

Phalanger didelphis lemurina et vulpina of Shaw. As large as a cat; of a gray-brown color, pale underneath; tail black.

The phalanger of Cook. Less than a cat, grayred, white beneath, red on the flanks, a space of white near the end of the tail.

Gen. 2. Petaurus of Shaw.-Cute laterum in alas explicata. Flying phalangers. Have the skin of the sides more or less extended between the legs, like the palatouches among the rodentia, which gives them the power of supporting themselves a few moments in the air, and of taking more distant leaps. Natives of New Holland. Some of the species have the canine teeth below, but they are very small; the upper canine teeth, and the three first grinders above as well as below, are short, and the hindmost molar teeth are armed with points.

Dwarf-flying phalanger. Didelphis pygmæa of Shaw. Mouse-color, and nearly of that size; hairs of the tail disposed in a regular series, like the vane of a feather; wants the lower canine teeth, and the upper are very small; they have four hind molar teeth, presenting four points respectively, but somewhat lower and crossing each other; this is the form in ruminant animals; the anterior pair above, and the one below, are more complicated. This structure renders this genus more particularly frugivorous than any of the foregoing.

The large flying phalanger. Phalanger of Shaw. Resemble the flying cats in the size of the body; the fur is soft and copious, and its tail is long and flattened. They have divers shades of brown, some are variegated and very lack.

Long-tailed flying phalanger. Didelphis macroura. Deep brown above, white below; tail about half as long again as the body.

Group. 1. Caninis inferioribus nullis. This group has the upper incisive and the canine teeth; and two toes in the hind feet united as in the second group, but they want the hind thumbs, and the inferior canine teeth.

Gen. 1. Myorthius of Lay.-Canino superiore dumtaxat uno. The kangaroo rats. The smallest animals of this order which exhibit any relationship to the carnivora in their general character. Their teeth are nearly the same as in the phalangers; they have also a sharp canine tooth above; the two mean incisors in the upper jaw are longer than the rest; in the lower jaw there are only two, which are bowed outwards; they have one anterior molar tooth, long, cutting, and denticulated, succeeded by four that are rough with four flat tubercles. But what distinguishes these animals from the preceding genera of this family is the disproportioned length of the