Harriet Ritvo's The Platypus and the Mermaid (and other figments of the classifying imagination) is an interesting look at the Victorian passion for classifying things. The book ranges and prowls over many communities from the scientific to the farmer to the sideshow. This is more about the lack of firm boundaries in Victorian society as science tried to define itself than the author's whim. But the author does handle the twists and turns adroitly. This is a good read and a wonderful look at the Victorian period and what the scientist and the lay person considered important in their need to classify their world, particulary as it grew with the growth of the British Empire.