XVI THE HISTORY OF ZOOLOGY 673 



a brief diagnosis in Latin, so that any naturalist versed in his 

 system could recognise whether an animal or plant which came 

 . under his notice was already described or not. In this way he, as 

 it were, pigeon-holed the facts of Biology, and so made the deter- 

 mination of the proper place of any new fact a comparatively 

 simple matter. By universal consent, the Si/stema Naturm is 

 taken as a starting-point by systematists. It is customary to 

 place after the name of a species the initial or abbreviated name 

 of the writer by whom the species was first distinguished and 

 named. For instance, the Bass, a common British Teleost, was 

 named Ferca labrax by Linnseus. In 1828, Cuvier and 

 Valenciennes, in their great work on Fishes, recognised that it 

 Avas generically distinct from the Perch, and, retaining the generic 

 name Perca for the latter, called the Bass Labrax lupus. In 1860, 

 further investigations into the Perch family necessitated placing 

 it in the genus Morone, and, according to the law of priority, the 

 specific name licpits gives place to labrax, the latter having been 

 applied by Linnaeus. The Bass is therefore correctly called 

 Morone labrax, Linn., the more usual name, Labrax luints, Cuv. and 

 Val, becoming a synonym. In deciding all such questions of 

 priority, the tenth edition (1758) of the Systema Naturce is taken 

 as a starting point : all species distinguished by Linnaeus, and 

 not subsequently split up into two or more species, are dis- 

 tinguished by the abbreviation L. or Linn. For instance, Canis 

 familiaris Linn, is the Domestic Dog, Passer domeshcus Linn. 

 the House Sparrow : and names given by the older naturalists are 

 neglected unless endorsed by Linnaeus. 



In many respects the system of Linnaeus was eminently artificial ; 

 he relied too much on single characters in classification, and did 

 not take the totality of structure into sufficient consideration. He 

 divided the animal kingdom into the following six classes : — 



1. Mammalia. 



2. Aves. 



3. Amphibia [including Reptilia and Amphibia]. 



4. Pisces. 



5. Insecta [including all the Arthrcrpoda]. 



6. Vermes [including Mollusca, Worms, Echinoderms, Ccelen- 



terata, and Protozoa']. 



It will be seen that all the classes are of natural groups, Avith 

 the exception of the last, but that they are far from being of even 

 approximately equal value. The first four are what we still call 

 classes, but there is no attempt to unite them into a single group 

 of higher order ; and in this respect the classification of Linneeus 

 falls behind that of Ray, who recognised the phylum Vertebrata 

 under the name of animals with blood. The fifth class, on the other 

 hand — that of Insecta — is the equivalent of an entire phylum, 



