Fourth Order: Chelonian Reptiles

Heart with a double auricle; body equipped with a carapace and four limbs; no teeth in the jaw bones

Chelonia Chelys

Emys Tortoise

SIXTH DEGREE OF ORGANIC STRUCTURE

Nerves ending at a spinal chord and a brain which fills the cranial case; heart with two ventricles and warm blood.

[Birds and Mammals]

BIRDS

(Thirteenth Class of the Animal Kingdom)

Oviparous animals, vertebrates and with warm blood; breathing completely by adhering and pierced lungs; four articulated limbs, two of which are shaped as wings; feathers on the skin.

Observations

The birds certainly have an organic structure more perfect than the reptiles and all the animals of the preceding classes, because they have warm blood, a heart with two ventricles, and their brain fills the cranial case, characteristics which they share only with the more perfect animals which make up the last class.

However, birds evidently form only the penultimate rung of the animal ladder, for they are less perfect than the mammals, since they are still oviparous, lack mammary glands, lack a diaphragm, a bladder, and so on, and since they have fewer faculties.

In the table which follows, one can notice that the four first orders include the birds whose young cannot walk or feed themselves when they hatch and, by contrast, the three last orders include the birds whose young move and feed themselves as soon as they emerge from the egg. Finally, the seventh order, that of the palimpeds, seems to me to show birds who, through their affinities, come closest to the animals of the class which follows.

Table of Birds

First order: climbers

To digits in front and two at the back.

Levirostrate Climbers

Parrot Cockatoo Macaw Pull-bird

Touraco Trogon Musophaga Toucan

Cuneirostrate Climbers

Woodpecker Wryneck Jacamar

Ani Cuckoo

SECOND ORDER: RAPTORS

A single digit at the back; anterior digits completely free; hook beak and claws

Nocturnal Raptors

Owl Eagle-owl Surnia

Bare-Neck Raptors

Condor Vulture

Feather Necked Raptors

Griffon Secretary-bird Eagle

Buzzard Goshawk Falcon

THIRD ORDER: PASSERES

A single digit at the back; the two front external digits are united; the tarsus of medium height

Crenirostrate Passeres

Tanagra Shrike Flycatcher

Ampelis Thrush

Dentirostrate Passeres

Hornbill Motmot Phytotoma

Plenirostrate Passeres

Grackle Bird-of-Paradise Roller

Crow Pie

Conirostrate Passeres

Ox-pecker Blaucopis Oriole Cacicus Starling

Crossbill Brosbeak Colius Finch Bunting

Subulirostrate Passares

Mannakin Titmouse

Lark Wagtail

Planirostrate Passares

Martin Swallow Nightjar

Tenuirostrate Passares

Kingfisher Tody Nuthatch Orthorincus

Bee-eater Humming-bird Creeper Hoopoe

FOURTH ORDER: COLUMBAE

Soft flexible beak, flat at the base; nostrils covered my a soft skin; wings appropriate for flight; brood of two eggs

Pigeon

FIFTH ORDER: GALLINACEANS

Solid beak, horny, rounded at the base; brood of more than two eggs

Alectride Gallinaceans

Bustard Peacock Tetras Pheasant

Guinea-fowl Curassow Penelope Turkey

Brachypterous Gallinaceans

Dodo Cassowary

Rhea Ostrich

SIXTH ORDER: WADERS

Very long tarsus, without feathers right up to the leg; external digits united at their base (birds of the water’s edge)

Pressirostrate Waders

Jacana Rail Oyster-catcher

Moorhen Coot

Cultrirostrate Waders

Bittern Heron Stork

Crane Mycteria Tantalus

Teretirostrate Waders

Avocet Curlew Woodcock

Dunlin Plover

Latirostrate Waders

Boatbill Spoonobill Pheonicopterus

SEVENTH ORDER: PALIMPEDS

Digits linked by large membranes; tarsus not very high (aquatic animals, swimmers)

Penniped Palimpeds

Anhinga Phaeton Gannet

Frigate-bird Cormorant Pelican

Serrirostrate Palmipeds

Merganser Duck Flamingo

Longipen Palmipeds

Gull Albatross Petrel

Avocet Tern Scissor-bill

Brevipen Palimpeds

Grebe Guuillemot Auk

Penguin King-penguin

MONOTREMES (Geoff.)

Animals intermediate between the birds and the mammals; these animals are quadrupeds, without mammary glands, without teeth in the jaws, without lips, and with only one orifice for the genital organs, feces and urine; their body is covered with hair or bristles

Ornithorhynchus Echidna

Note: I have already spoken of these animals in Chapter VI, where I showed that they are neither mammals, nor birds, nor reptiles.

MAMMALS

(Fourteenth Class of the Animal Kingdom)

Viviparous animals with mammary glands; four articulated limbs, or only two; respiration entirely by lungs which are not pierced on the outside; hair on some parts of the body.

Observations

In the order of nature, which clearly proceeds from the simplest towards the most complex in its workings on living bodies, the mammals necessarily make up the last class of the animal kingdom.

This class effectively includes the most perfect animals, those which have the most faculties, the most intelligence, and finally, the most complex organic structure.

These animals whose structure comes closest the that of man display for this reasons a combination of senses and faculties more perfect than all the others. They are the only ones which are truly viviparous and which have mammary glands to suckle their young.

Thus, the mammals display the most significant complexity in the organic structure of animals, and represent the limit in the perfectioning and in the number of faculties which nature, with the help of this organic structure, was able to give to living bodies. Therefore, they must come at the end of the immense series of existing animals