CHAPTER III 



THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE MAMMALIA 



The terminology and nomenclature of science form a great 

 barrier, which only too often shuts out the educated layman 

 from following the course of investigation and keeping abreast 

 of the discoveries in which he may be particularly interested. 

 No more frequent and heartfelt complaint is uttered than that 

 which decries the "scientific jargon, " and one might be tempted 

 to think that this jargon was a superfluous nuisance, delib- 

 erately adopted to exclude the uninitiated and guard the 

 secrets of the temple from the curious intruder. As a matter 

 of fact, however, this terminology, though an unquestionable 

 evil from one point of view, is an indispensable implement of 

 investigation and description. Ordinary language has far 

 too few words for the purpose and most of the words that 

 might be used lack the all-important quality of precision. 

 The vernacular names of animals and plants are notoriously 

 inexact and, even when not inaccurately employed, are not 

 sufficiently refined and destinctive for scientific use. This 

 is pre-eminently true of the New World, where the European 

 settlers gave the names of the creatures with which they had 

 been familiar at home to the new animals which they found in 

 the western hemisphere. Some of these names, such as deer, 

 wolf, fox, bear, are accurate enough for ordinary purposes, 

 while others are ludicrously wrong. The bird that we call the 

 Robin is altogether different from his European namesake, and 

 the great stag, or Wapiti, is commonly called ''Elk," a name 

 which properly belongs to the Moose. In short, it is impossible 

 to gain the necessary accuracy and abundance of vocabulary 



50 



