18 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



snakes. The greater part of the 20 North American species of reptiles and 

 amphibians known to him personally were based on specimens transmitted 

 by his former student, Dr. C. D. Garden, from the Carolinas, and on a few- 

 sent from Pennsylvania by Pehr Kalm, also one of his students. Thus the 

 greater part of the snakes of the eastern United States became known to 

 Linnteus prior to 1766. 



About 500 species of fishes are recorded, of which 100 are American, 

 divided about equally between North and South America. Forty of the 

 nearly 60 North American species described are based on specimens sent 

 from the Carolinas by Dr. Garden, the others mainly on specimens in the 

 museum of King Frederic. 



There is not time to notice in detail the various classes of Ccelenterates. 

 A few words about insects will serve as a general illustration for this phylum. 

 Linnaeus recorded about 2400 species, the greater part of which he was the 

 first to describe; about 300,000 are now recognized. Of the insects 

 known to him, 65 per cent are recorded in the second (1701) edition of his 

 " Fauna Sueccia," and many of the remainder are European, so that his 

 knowledge of exotic species was exceedingly restricted. Of Coleoptera he 

 recorded about 800 species; the number now known is estimated at 12,000. 

 Of Lepidoptera he recorded about 800; 7000 are now known from North 

 America alone. Of Diptera he recorded 278 species, of which 200 were 

 from Sweden; 12,000 are now known from North America. 



Linnseus's system of classification was based on a few external characters, 

 and w^as recognized by himself as artificial and provisional. It was intended 

 only as a stepping-stone to better things, when the structure and affinities 

 of animals should become better known. The statistics already given in- 

 dicate how limited was his knowledge of the world's fauna; his classifica- 

 tion of animals shows how little he loiew of their structure, and how often he 

 was misled by superficial resemblances. Yet his "Systema Naturae" was the 

 working basis of all naturalists for the next half-century.^ Twelve editions 

 were published during his lifetime, and it was later translated into several 

 of the continental languages. To such an extent was it regarded as final by 

 many subsequent naturalists that, when his groups began to be changed and 

 new genera interpolated, it was deemed by some of them little less than sacri- 

 lege. When convenience demanded subdivision of the larger genera, owing 

 to the great number of new species that had become known since 1766, it 



I Turton, in his Life and Writings of Linn6, says, "To this system may be justly applied 

 the nervous observations of Dr. Johnson, in his delineation of the character of Shakespeare: 

 ' The stream of time, which is continually washing away the dissoluble fabrics of other 

 systems, passes without injury by the adamant of Linn6.'" — William Turton: A General 

 Syntem oj Nature.. . by Sir Charles Linne, Vol. VII, 1S06, p. [42]. 



