CLASSIFICATION 31 



with the animal kingdom from the earliest 

 of science; trying to recognise each distinct kind 

 of animal form, and to give it a name of its own. 

 Unfortunately for the reader, zoologists have been 

 obliged to choose names of Latin and Greek 

 origin, and therefore in writing about animals we 

 are often obliged to burden our pages with long 

 words. This is a disadvantage, but it is a very 

 slight one compared with the great advantage 

 gained by using the learned tongues, which con- 

 sists in this, that learned men from all countries 

 of the globe can equally understand the names 

 thus brought into use. One particular kind of 

 creature may have one name in English, another 

 in French, another in German, and so on ; but the 

 learned world does not trouble itself with this 

 multiplicity of names it gives the creature a 

 couple of names in Latin, and these names stand 

 good for learned readers in every part of the 

 globe. The importance of this will be fully real- 

 ised when, in a later page, we shall have to speak 

 of the work done by zoologists, and the way in 

 which they do it. Meantime we must ask our 

 readers to have patience if now and then some 

 long names must be used. These learned names 

 sometimes convey a description of some impor- 

 tant characteristic possessed by the animal, and 

 sometimes they are merely fanciful names, such 

 as the child we have spoken of gives to his zoo- 

 logical playthings. It does not greatly matter 

 whether the name is descriptive or not ; zoologists 

 describe each animal kind in its most minute de- 

 tail, and the most commonplace or inappropriate 

 name serves its purpose quite efficiently as a means 

 of referring to published descriptions. 



We have spoken of sorting the animal kingdom 

 3 



