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better to treat them as families, a rank which is claimed for the anthropoid apes by many naturalists.

As no good systematic work on the genera and species of bats has been yet published, I adopt the five families as generally used in this country, with the genera as given in the papers of Dr. J. E. Gray and Mr. Tomes. A monograph by Dr. Peters has long been promised, and his outline arrangement was published in 1865, but this will perhaps be materially altered when the work appears.

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The genera of Chiroptera are in a state of great confusion, the names used by different authors being often not at all comparable, so that the few details given of the distribution of the bats are not trustworthy. We have therefore made little use of this order in the theoretical part of the work.

The osteology of the Insectivora has been very carefully worked out by Professor Mivart in the Jounral of Anatomy and Physiology (Vol. ii., p. 380), and I follow his classification. as given there, and in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society (1871).

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The next order, Carnivora, has been studied in detail by Professor Flower; and I adopt the classification given by him in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1869, p. 4.

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The Cetacea is one of those orders the classification of which is very unsettled. The animals comprising it are so huge, and there is so much difficulty in preserving them, that only a very few species are known with anything like completeness. A considerable number of genera and species have been described or indicated; but as many of these are founded on imperfect specimens of perhaps a single individual, it is not to be wondered at that those few naturalists who occupy themselves with the study of these large animals, cannot agree as to the proper mode of grouping them into natural families. They are, however, of but little importance to us, as almost all the species inhabit the ocean, and of only a few of them can it be said that anything is accurately known of their distribution. I therefore consider it best to follow Professor Carus, who makes a smaller number of families; but I give also the arrangement of Dr. Gray in his British Museum catalogue of whales and seals, as modified subsequently in the Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1870, p. 772. The Zeuglodontidæ, a family of extinct tertiary whales, are classed by Professors Owen and Carus between Cetacea and Sirenia, while Professor Huxley considers them to have been carnivorous and allied to the seals.

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The order Sirenia, comprising the sea-cows, consists of a single family:

Family 42. Manatidæ.

The extensive order Ungulata comprises the three orders Pachydermata, Solidungula, and Ruminantia of the older naturalists. The following classification is that now generally adopted, the only difference of opinion being as to whether some of the groups should be classed as families or sub-families, a matter of little importance for our purpose:

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The two next orders consist of but a single family each, viz.:

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We now come to the Rodentia, a very extensive and difficult order, in which there is still much difference of opinion as to the details of classification, although the main outlines are pretty well settled. The foundations of a true classification of this order were laid by Mr. G. R. Waterhouse more than thirty years ago, and succeeding authors have done little more than follow his arrangement with unimportant modifications. Professor Lilljeborg, of Upsala, has however made a special study of this group of animals, and has given an original and detailed classification of all the genera. (Systematisk Öfversigt af de Gnagande Däggdjuren, Glires. Upsala, 1866.) I follow this arrangement with a few slight modifications suggested by other naturalists, and which make it better adapted for the purposes of this work.

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The Edentata have been classified by Mr. Turner, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society (1851, p. 205), by Dr. Gray in the British Museum Catalogue, and by Professor Carus in his Handbuch. The former takes a middle course between

the numerous families of Dr. Gray, seven in number, and the two families to which Professor Carus restricts the existing species. I therefore follow Mr. Turner.

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The Marsupials have been well classified and described by Mr. Waterhouse in the first volume of his Natural History of Mammalia, and his arrangement is here followed. The suborders adopted by Professor Carus are also given.

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The last order, the Monotremata, consist of two families, which Professor Carus combines into one, but which it seems more natural to keep separate.

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