444 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



mammals, birds, amphibians (including reptiles), fishes, insects 

 (including all arthropods), and Vermes (including mollusks, 

 worms, echinoderms, coelenterates, and protozoans). He be- 

 lieved in the fixity of species, teaching at first that there are 

 as many species of animals as were created in the beginning. 

 Subsequent editions of his System of Nature (first published 

 as a pamphlet in 1735) showed slight modifications of this 

 view, but on the whole his influence was in behalf of the idea 

 of the fixity of species. 



Buffoii (1707-1788) was destined to exert as great an 

 influence on zoology as did Linnaeus, but in a different field. 

 Buffon's studies were widely extended over nature. His 

 Natural History is a popular account of the animal kingdom 

 most interestingly written. It was read very generally and 

 did much to popularize the subject. Buffon was one of the 

 first to attempt an explanation of the facts of the geograph- 

 ical distribution of animals, and he is considered the first of 

 the great pioneers of modern evolution. Professor Osborn, 

 in his history of the development of the evolution idea, From 

 the G-reeks to Darwin, says: " It is interesting to contrast these 

 two great men [Linnaeus and Buffon], one the founder of the 

 view of classification- as a fixed system of the divine order 

 of things, and the ne plus ultra of botany and zoology; the 

 other the founder of the directly opposed view of classifica- 

 tion as an invention of man, and of the laws governing the 

 relation of animals to their environment as the chief end of 

 science." As might be expected at this period Buffon was 

 not an unqualified evolutionist but wavered between views 

 such as Linnaeus held and a belief in the mutability (liability 

 to change) of species. 



One of the earliest writers in the field which we have termed 

 ecology or bionomics was the English clergyman, Gilbert 

 White (1720-1793), the author of The Natural 'History 

 and Antiquities of Selborne. Though, as Professor J. Arthur 



