.VI. NOMENCLATURE. 201 



The name of each genus of rdiquia should point 

 out its fossil state, and at the same time the parti- 

 cular order ', class, or kind of recent subjects, on 

 which such genus is founded A Generic name, 

 therefore, which does not definitively distinguish the 

 class, &c. on which it is established, may be 

 objected to. e. g. Zoolithus Generic names which 

 have been given to reliquia to distinguish their re- 

 semblance, to some class or kind of bodies from 

 which they do not actually derive their form, are 

 also to be rejected, e. g. Bufonites Siliquastrum 

 Plectrnnites, &c. 



According to the foregoing principles the names 

 of the genera may be MAMMODOLITHUS, ORNITHO- 

 LITHUS, ICHTHYOLITHUS f, &c. v. Syst. Arrange- 

 ment. P. 2. 



} It may be objected, that the termination lithus, does not 

 point out the general fossil state of rellquia, but their actual 

 change into stone, and that the names thus compounded are only 

 applicable to petrifactions To this we may answer, there are so 

 many examples in Natural History for the use of terms in a more 

 extended sense, than their original signification warrants, that to 

 reject an established and expressive name, because it does not 

 strictly accord with all the bodies arranged under, seems unne- 

 cessary Besides, lapis lias been used, and consequently so may 

 lithos with equal propriety, to express any fossil body, without 

 respect to its being stone, strictly so called, y. Syst. Nat. E. 1 C. 

 T. III. " Linuaei Systerna Lapidumf p. 33. " Fossilia: lapides 

 ambigui" &c. p. 34 <S:c. &c. 



