Eat Your Heart Out, Linnaeus

Borges describes "a certain Chinese encyclopedia called the Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its distant pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush; (l) et cetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies." J. L. Borges, Selected Non-Fictions, E. Weinberger, Ed. (Penguin, New York, 1999), pp. 229-232. (Via Surekha)