PREFACE. Vll 



influence of the dogmas of the Linnean School. 

 There have not been wanting naturalists in this 

 country, who have regarded the twelfth edition of 

 the " Systema Naturae" as the standard of all excel- 

 lence in this branch of Natural History, and who 

 have considered the classes, orders, and genera 

 therein established, as sufficient to embrace all 

 the species on the globe. Every attempt to em- 

 ploy characters different from those made use of 

 by LINNAEUS, has been stigmatized as presumptuous 

 innovation ; the establishment of a new genus has 

 been condemned as an unnecessary burden imposed 

 on the memory ; the new species have been crowded 

 into the established categories, though destitute of 

 the prescribed claims of admission ; and all that is 

 valuable in the history of an animal, has been con- 

 sidered capable of being expressed in its trivial 

 name and specific character. Though such has 

 been the practice of the devoted admirers of LiN- 

 NJEUS, it is not conformable to those principles 

 which regulated the conduct of that enlightened 

 naturalist himself. He examined with the great- 

 est freedom the opinions of his predecessors, and 

 did not suffer the methods which they had employ- 

 ed to regulate the construction of his own divisions, 

 He exhibited the most convincing proofs of the ne-. 



