[FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL, 



No. V., OCTOBER 1831.] 



Contributions to the Natural History of South Africa, fyc. 



By ANDREW SMITH, M.D. M.W.S. &c. 



No. 1. 



THERE was a time when it required no trifling degree of con- 

 fidence to venture upon introducing a new species, much less a 

 new genus or genera, to the notice of the public ; and much in 

 the form of apology to satisfy the vigilant guardians of the 

 older systems, for attempting to interfere with their too in- 

 definite and highly confused divisions. Of late, however, ob- 

 servation, rather than theory, has been the guide of the Natural- 

 ist ; and the simple discovery of a form, not quite akin to any 

 described, is now regarded as all that is necessary to warrant 

 the formation and publication of an additional subdivision. 



The advantages that have resulted from this new, and cer- 

 tainly far more scientific method of proceeding, must have been 

 sufficient to have convinced even the most zealous anti- 

 reformers and the most devoted admirers of the earlier classi- 

 fications, that innovation was not resorted to before it was 

 absolutely wanted ; and every day's experience is forcibly prov- 

 ing, that still farther ramifications are imperatively called for, 

 wherever the student of nature is, with real and acumen, ex- 

 tending his research. 



South Africa, it is already known, possesses several forms 

 not to be satisfactorily classed in any of the older genera, and 

 numbers more exist, which are quite as much, if not more at 

 variance with them, than even those that have already been 

 described, some of which I shall now proceed to notice.* 



* In forming new Genera, I have generally taken care to particularise the 

 type of each, by affixing to the species upon which it has been formed as a 

 trivial name the word typicus. If such a plan was to be universally adopted, 

 many difficulties would be obviated, and the limits of Genera would be more 

 clearly kept than they are even at present, in consequence of new forms being 

 often compared with remote and absent species, from their discoverers not 

 being acquainted with the type of the Genus, or with such of the species as 

 are more nearly allied to it. To such as possess the organs of constructive, 

 ness, I would suggest the divising of a nomenclature, whereby the relative 

 affinities of the various species of a Genus, from the typical one downwards, 

 might be indicated by the trivial names. 



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