A treasury of natural history; or, a popular dictionary of animated nature ... To which are added, a syllabus of practical taxidermy, etc / [Samuel Maunder].

  • Maunder, Samuel, 1785-1849.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treasury of natural history; or, a popular dictionary of animated nature ... To which are added, a syllabus of practical taxidermy, etc / [Samuel Maunder]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/854
    THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, ARRANGED IN CLASSES, ORDERS, AND GENERA, ACCORDING TO ITS ORGANIZATION. It has long been customary to apply the terms Animal Kingdom, Vegetable Kingdom, and Mineral Kingdom, respectively, to the three grand portions of the “mighty whole” into which, when speaking of the science of Natural History, the countless productions of the Earth are systematically divided. In this simple and obvious arrangement, the Animal Kingdom is conspicuously pre-eminent in rank and importance; inasmuch as it comprehends all organized and living beings pro- vided with a mouth and stomach, and endowed with the powers of sensation and voluntary locomotion. The Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms are, however, so intimately blended together, that this description is an insufficient guide to distinguish those organized beings which may be said to he on the confines of either Kingdom. The possession of nerves being supposed to be Indispensable to the power of motion, a nervous system has been considered the distinguishing characteristic of the Animal Kingdom, but in one division (Acrita, comprising Polypes, Infiisoria, Animalcules, Sponges, &c.) no traces of nerves have hitherto been discovered. The best characteristic of the Animal Kingdom is the possession of a mouth or aperture through which food is received, and a stomach in which it is digested, and this would include all the organized beings which have ever been con- sidered by naturalists to belong to the Animal Kingdom, except the various kinds of sponges. Our limits are prescribed, and further observations must necessarily be dispensed with in this place; but the following beautiful remarks by Mr. R3rmer Jones so admirably illustrate the difficulty of drawing an exact line between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms, that we gladly conclude in his words : — “ Light and darkness are distinct from each other, and no one possessed of eye-sight would be in danger of confounding night with day ; yet he who, looking upon the evening sky, would attempt to point out precisely the line of separation between the parting day and the approaching night, would have a difficult task to perform. Thus is it with the Physiologist who endeavours to draw the boundary between these two grand Kingdoms of Nature; for so gradually and imperceptibly do their confines blend, that it is at present utterly out of his power to define exactly where Vegetable existence ceases, and Animal life begins.” Page Division I. VERTEBRATA. Class I. MAMMALIA . 400 Order I. Bimana . . 05 Man .... 402 (.Qitadrupeds) . 657 Order II. Quaprumana 657 Monkey . . . 427 Ape . • • -27 Orang-Outang Chimpanzee Gibbon Siamang _. IJngka-Puti Colobus Douc . Scmnopithecus Barbary Ape Baboon Flatyrrhini . Cebidm Mycetes Pago . 402 . 12-i . 260 . 617 . 716 . 144 . 192 . 602 . 49 . 44 . .530 . 112 . 442 Spider Jfonkey Saki Sajou . Sagoln Marmozet Jacchus Lemur Propithecus Lory . Galago Tarslus Chcirogalcus Galeopithecua Poge . 637 . 586 . 586 . 586 . 412 . .V>2 . 372 . 548 . 389 . 251 . 065 . 122 . 2.52