624 TAXONOMY. 



new ones, formed upon new principles, to increase the already innu- 

 merable host of names. Groups that are so multiform as are the higher 

 ones of a natural system can scarcely be distinguished by one name, 

 and composed of many, as would be requisite in the present instance ; 

 as, for instance, Insecta ametabola haustellata or Insecta metabola 

 mandibulata clytroptera appear still less appropriate ; we have there- 

 fore retained Linnaeus, as the most ancient, but have applied them to 

 differently determined groups. 



THIRD CHAPTER. 



OF NOMENCLATURE. 



353. 



System has not only to attend to the division, but also to the naming 

 of natural bodies ; this is important, as names serve us as the means 

 of distinguishing groups which differ from the rest by certain cha- 

 racters and qualities. Thus the names of insects are as important to 

 the entomologist as the words of his mother tongue to man in general ; 

 were there no words there could be no communication of ideas, for they 

 are the means to express and characterise them. Without the groups 

 being named, naturalists could not communicate together, and without 

 a distinction of the known and discovered all would speedily return to 

 its former obscurity : there is, consequently, in natural history a dis- 

 tinct chapter, which treats of the doctrine of naming, and which is 

 technically called the nomenclature. Nomenclature propounds the 

 laws whereby names must be formed, and investigates the correctness 

 of existing ones, by the principles of grammar and language. Linnaeus 

 is the originator of this division of natural history ; he was the first to 

 introduce systematic names into natural history : before him it was 

 customary to call animals according to their vulgar name, or by that 

 imposed by the ancients. By the introduction of these scientific, fixed, 

 and universally valid names Linnaeus lias doubtlessly acquired his 



