172 ZOOLOGY 



The species io. The rapid and wide acceptance of the Linnsean 

 and"the" r system of nomenclature was due partly to its inherent 

 Systema simplicity and convenience, but also to the fact that 



Naturae \ . 



Linnaeus himselt proceeded to apply it to all animals and 

 plants known in his day. He cataloged the living crea- 

 tures of the world, so far as they had been recorded or 

 were represented by obtainable specimens, and to every 

 species applied a name. In the Species Plantarum of 

 1753 we find the starting point for botanical nomencla- 

 ture, while the tenth edition of Systema Nature?, pub- 

 lished in 1758, gives us the earliest animal names now 

 entitled to recognition. After the name, for purposes 

 of reference, we often write the name of the author who 

 first proposed it. Such author-names, when frequently 

 cited, are usually abbreviated, and by common consent 

 "L." stands for Linnaeus. Consequently, in looking 

 over any catalog of the animals or plants of a country, 

 one may see at a glance how many and which were 

 known in Linnsean days ; they are those the names of 

 which are followed by the letter "L." 



Modification ii. Linnaeus sometimes added a third name, to desig- 

 nate the variety. Thus European man was Homo 



nomen- sapiens Europeans. In later times much more interest 

 has been taken in variations and local races, so that the 

 use of varietal or subspecific names has become general. 

 The various complexities thus arising are chiefly of 

 interest to specialists, whose work demands the con- 

 sideration of many small matters. Thus Forel, a Swiss 

 student of ants, described an ant from British Columbia 

 as Formica rufa obscuripes whymperi. This seems like 

 a return to the old sentence method, but the meaning 

 is quite different. Formica rufa is the red ant ; in one 

 part of its range it is represented by a race or sub- 

 species which Forel called obscuripes (dull or dusky- 



