MAMMALOGY MILLER 403 



on which the present structure has been built. Much information 

 had already been published, but the definite course of procedure 

 which we are following to-day was not established until Linneaus 

 perfected his system of classification and nomenclature and Brisson 

 applied to mammals an enlarged scheme of synoptically tabulating 

 the characters by which the different groups are distinguished from 

 each other. Trivial though such innovations may appear, they 

 actually proved to be of so much importance that mammalogy as a 

 special branch of zoology took its date from them, and the work of 

 earlier naturalists retired to a position of antiquarian interest. The 

 reason for this should be apparent to anyone who has grasped the idea 

 of the great number of mannnals to be written about; the appearance 

 of any convenient scheme for handling the rapidly increasing mass of 

 facts, when hitherto no such devices had existed, would necessarily 

 mark an epoch. The system of Latin names perfected by Linnaeus 

 and regarded by the general public as a form of mystification is 

 nothing but a time-saving device, a tool so useful that, in the absence 

 of something better, the scientific study of mammals could not have 

 gone on without it. Such also was Brisson's system of tabulation. 



In the year 1758 Linnaeus was able to include only 86 mammals 

 in the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae, his boldly conceived 

 two-volume review of the living things of the world. A century later 

 Baird, the second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, knew 

 220 kinds in North America alone, while now, 70 years after Baird 

 and 175 after Linnaeus, we are acquainted with about 2,500 kinds 

 in North America, or about 30 times as many as the whole world 

 was supjjosed to contain at the time when the modern study of mam-' 

 malogy began. To trace all the steps by which this increase of 

 knowledge has been made would be the subject for an entire book. 

 Here it will be possible merely to indicate some of the most important. 

 At first the subject was small and every author felt himself qualified 

 to describe all the mammals in existence. This feeling of self-suffi- 

 ciency arose from the ignorance which prevailed then. There were 

 few known mammals to write about, and the system by which they 

 were classified was so simple and artificial that there was no diffi- 

 culty in referring each species to its proper place. Great museums 

 had not been established and specially equipped collecting expedi- 

 tions were undreamed of. The descriptions and notes made by 

 travelers and published as incidental matter in their accounts of 

 strange lands were the chief source on which the European naturalist 

 was forced to depend. Work done under such conditions was neces- 

 sarily incomplete, but it was also pleasing in its appearance of sim- 

 plicity. Indeed, the complicated nature of the facts could not be 

 suspected and it was therefore possible to regard each species and 

 each higher category as an entity unconnected with any other except 



