TAXONOMIC 

 PRINCIPLES 



Taxonomy is one of the oldest fields of biological 

 science. Organisms, and their relationships to other 

 organisms, have occupied man's thinking for hun- 

 dreds, if not thousands, of years. In order to classify, 

 even at the most elementary level, man had to 

 recognize (or identify) organisms. To do this he was 

 prone to observe, make comparisons, and to some 

 extent, integrate data, and develop generalizations 

 therefrom. It can be argued that taxonomy was 

 almost synonymous with biology in its beginning as 

 a science. The identity of organisms occupied the 

 thinking of early biologists. To derive order out of 

 the multitude of forms in existence, these biologists 

 were primarily concerned with writing descriptions 

 and giving names. 



