Starting from the basis " that the phrase `birds are greatly modified reptiles' would hardly be an exaggerated expression of the closeness " of the resemblance between the two classes, which he had previously brigaded under the name of Sauropsida (as he had brigaded the Pisces and Amphibia as Ichthyopsida), he drew in bold outline both their likenesses and their differences, and then proceeded to inquire how the A y es could be most appropriately subdivided into orders, suborders and families.
The Perissodactyla have been brigaded with the Artiodactyla to form the typical group of the ungulates, under the name of Diplarthra, or Ungulata Vera, and the features distinguishing the combined group from the less specialized members of the order Ungulata will be found under the heading of that order.
The three remaining families of the Hystricoidea, of which one is African while the other two are chiefly South American, are very closely allied and often brigaded in a single family group. In the Capromyidae, which includes only the South American and West Indian hutias, the South American coypu and the African cane-rats, the tympanic bulla of the skull is hollow, the par-occipital process straight, the lachrymal small, and the cheekteeth rooted, with deep enamel-folds; the first front toe Leing occasionally absent.
The group, which has also the alternative title of Didelphia, is by some authorities regarded as a sub-class of the mammalia of equal rank with the Monotremata, while by others it is brigaded with the placentals, so that the two together form a sub-class of equal grade with the one represented by the monotremes.
