Man, according to the best-considered data of science, forms a single family, a single genus, a single species. He alone possesses the power of adapting himself to every climate, and of taking possession of countries the most widely opposite in character. We find him among the snows of the North Pole; we find him under the blazing sun of the Tropics. We find him in the palm-fringed islands of Southern Seas, and in the barren burning waste of the inhospitable Sahara. Considered as an animal who feeds and reproduces himself, he forms alone the order of Bimana; so named in opposition to the Quadrumana, or apes, who make use of their fore-feet as we do of our two hands. Deprive man of his progressive and transmissible intellect—of those mysterious powers which we call the mind and the soul—and he would become at once the most useless and the most wretched member of the animal world.
The warm regions of the old and new continents are the true home and haunt of the apes. They are not sufficiently developed to be able to frequent the temperate or frigid zone. In our European menageries the specimens nearly all die of consumption. The Quadrumana form about one-fourteenth of the whole number of species of Mammalia.
The Carnivora, characterised by the development of their canine teeth, are spread over the whole globe. They are found in greater numbers in the torrid, however, than in the frigid zone. Their species compose at least one-third of the Mammalia.
The Rodentia, characterised by the development of the incisors, are wanting in Polynesia, and are rare in Australia. They are found in their maximum number in the torrid zone. Like the Carnivora, they form about one-third of the Mammalia.
The Ruminantia, remarkable for the development of their digestive apparatus, are distributed into 165 species, representing something less than one-ninth of the Mammalia. Africa, of all the continents, is richest in the Ruminants.
The Marsupialia, so strangely distinguished by the membranous pouch in which they enclose their young, belong to America, and especially Australia. At present about 123 species are known, or a little more than one-thirteenth of the Mammalia.
The Edentata, so named on account of their incomplete dentition, inhabit the tropical regions of the Old and New
World. They are distributed into 32 species, 19 of which belong to America. The Edentata, therefore, do not form more than one-fiftieth of the Mammalia.
The Pachydermata, which owe their name to the thickness of their skin or hide, almost exclusively belong to the Old World. None are found in Australia. The number of their species is 38, of which 5 only belong to Southern and Central America. The Pachyderms form, therefore, nearly one-thirty-seventh of the Mammalia.