BICENTENARY OF LINNMUS 17 



intended to express their chief distinctive characters. For this, Linnaeus 

 substituted a single word, an innovation the merits of which were at once 

 almost universally recognized. But Linnaeus reached this solution of a 

 grave inconvenience somewhat slowly, and not till 1753 did he fully adopt 

 the nomen triviale, when he introduced it into botany in his " Species Plan- 

 tarum," which is taken by botanists as the point of departure for the bino- 

 mial system. In the following year, 1754, he introduced it into zoology, 

 using it throughout his "Museum Adolphi Friderici" for all the animals 

 catalogued or described in this superb work; namely, 39 species of mammals, 

 23 of birds, 90 of reptiles and amphibians, 91 of fishes and 64 of invertebrates, 

 or for an aggregate of 307 species of animals. Four years later, in the 

 tenth or 1758 edition of his " Systema Naturae," he adopted it for the whole 

 animal kingdom, which date is now generally taken as the beginning of the 

 binomial system for zoology. The importance and utility of this simple 

 innovation in a matter of nomenclature are beyond estimate, and if Linnaeus 

 had done nothing else for the advancement of biology, he would be entitled 

 to a conspicuous niche in the temple of fame and to the gratitude of all sub- 

 sequent workers in this field. He for the first time gave technical standing 

 to the systematic names, both generic and specific, of all the plants and ani- 

 mals known at the dates when he introduced the nomen trivmle into the 

 nomenclature of botany and zoology. 



It is of interest in this connection to note the number of species of animals 

 known to Linnaeus at the date of publication of the last edition of the " Sys- 

 tema Naturae," — the number kno^^Ti to him personally, and the number 

 recorded respectively from North America and from South America. 



Of mammals, the whole number of species recorded is 190, of which three- 

 fourths are based on the descriptions of previous authors. Only 48 were 

 American, — 12 from North America and 36 from South America. The 

 5 North American mammals known to Linnaeus from specimens were the 

 raccoon, star-nosed mole, common mole, flying squirrel and chipmunk. 

 The number of species at present know^n from North America is 600, ex- 

 cluding subspecies. The number for the world, including the extinct as 

 well as the living, is about 10,000 as against less than 200 recorded by 

 Linnaeus. 



Of birds, about 925 are recorded of the 15,000 known to-day. The 200 

 known from America are divided about equally between North America and 

 South America, only 50 of which were described from specimens. 



The amphibia and reptiles number collectively about 250, of which about 

 one-third are American, 40 per cent of the latter being North American 

 and 60 per cent South American. The North American include 3 sala- 

 manders, the box-turtle, the six-lined lizard, the blue-tailed lizard and 14 



