of a Type to Lhwaan Genera. 97 



doubt that Linnseus, had he known our modern practice, 

 would have designated as the type of his genus that species 

 to which the name he adopted as generic had formerly been 

 specifically applied. This has long appeared to me such an 

 obvious truth, that I cannot but wonder at those who in- 

 vented an arbitrary rule for the selection of a Linnsean 

 type"^. It is true that there are some names which had 

 been used by the prse-Linnsean authors in a generic sense ; and 

 we know that in such cases they were very apt to distinguish the 

 different species by a numeral or other epithet ; but it is curi- 

 ous to find how few names of this kind were adopted by Lin- 

 naeus, not perhaps more than a dozen in all. Such are 



Of course in most, or all, of these instances it woidd be hope- 

 less to attempt to fix the type accurately, though we may 

 do so approximately, as with Tetrao and Parus, and that 

 within very narrow limits. 



However, the old names, previously used in a specific sense, 

 but taken and applied by Linnaeus to his genera, form, as I 

 have said, the majority of his 78. The authors from whom 

 he adopted them, as proved by his reference to their works, 

 are Gesner, Belon, Aldrovandus, Ckisius, Johnston, Brown, 

 Barrere, Klein, Moehring, Brisson, and perhaps one or two 

 others. It is, of course, an undoubted fact that with Lin- 



* I refer particularly to the rule, followed to some extent by the late 

 Mr. G. R. Gray, which enjoined the selection of the first species named 

 in a genus as its type. It is needless to observe that though Mr. Gray 

 professed to regard this rule, in practice he was constantly doing other- 

 wise. I cannot help remarking that it seems to have been thought by 

 Linnaeus, and by others of his school, that all nature might be deployed 

 in a single linear series ; and thus he arranged his species so that one genus 

 should follow naturally upon another. By this means the most normal 

 forms were of course placed in the middle, and the most aberrant at the 

 beginning and the end ; so that the effect of the rule which Mr. Gray ad- 

 mired would be that one of the most aberrant species of a genus would 

 often have to be considered its type. 



SER, III. VOL. YI. H 



