KLEIN, 1775 35 



In a recent monograph of the sharks and rays (Plagiostomia: Mem. 

 Mus. Comp. Zool.. Harvard College, XXXVI, 1916) Mr. Samuel Gar- 

 man calls attention to the availability in nomenclature of names of genera 

 accepted from Klein, a pre-Linnaean writer, in a post-Linnaean dictionary 

 called "Neuer Schauplatz," or for convenience "Gesellschaft Schau- 

 platz." This publication began, according to Mr. Carman, as a transla- 

 tion of Valmont de Bomare, but later it was extended and improved. 



We find no copy of this work in the libraries of Washington and 

 New York. It is probable that the copy in Mr. Carman's possession, 

 which its owner has kindly placed at our disposal, is the only one now in 

 the United States. 



Mr. Carman remarks: "The Schauplatz referred to above is anony- 

 mous, it is true, but it gives the authorities for its generic and specific 

 names, and thus its citations amount to republication after 1758, by the 

 original authors, previous as the first publication may have been." 



.Ml the generic names used by Jacob Theodor Klein in his Historia 

 Piscium Naluralis, 1740 to 1744, are here reproduced and accepted, thus 

 bringing them for consideration into eligibility in scientific nomenclature. 

 If accepted they therefore replace nearly all competing names except 

 those of Artedi ( 1738) accepted by Linnaeus (1758), and those of Gronovv 



(1763)- 



Toward the middle of the eighteenth century the idea of genus among 

 animals as a basis of classification became common property among nat- 

 uralists. The name of the genus was recognized as consisting of a 

 single word, but, until 1758, the species was indicated by a descriptive 

 phrase attached to the name of the genus. By the device of binomial 

 nomenclature, Linnasus made the system coherent, allotting to genus and 

 species each a single word, the first a noun, the second of the nature of 

 an adjective or genitive. In zoology, scientific nomenclature therefore 

 dates from January i, 1758, the time of the development of this system 

 by Linnaeus in the Tenth Edition of his Sysicma Naturcc. 



Prior to Linnxus, on the basis of definite genera with polynomial 

 species, three distinguishetl ichthyologists had separately developed, with- 

 out knowledge of each other's work, a system of classification of fishes. 

 These were Peter Artedi. "the Father of Ichthyology." in l^psala. in 

 173^: Jacob Theodor Klein, in Jena. 1740 to 1744; and Lorenz Theodor 

 Gronow, in Leyden, 1754 to 1780. Of these authors the work of Artedi 

 was the most comjiact and accurate, that of Klein the most elaborate, and 

 that of Gronow based on the most material. .Artcili's work was itie basis 

 of Linnxus's classification of the fishes. The principal part of the work 



