LINNAEUS AND THE LINNEAN CLASSIFICATION. 51 



It will be seen from the above that the names which 

 Ray used for the half-dozen British species of * crows ' (in 

 the wide sense of this term) are sometimes single, some- 

 times double, sometimes treble ; and also that the names 

 given to the raven and the jackdaw would not indicate 

 any relationship to the rook, the hooded crow, and the 

 carrion crow. On the other hand, the names used in the 

 modern system for the same birds, are, in the first place, 

 all built upon one system, being binomial, consisting of 

 two names, the second corresponding with a man's 

 Christian name and the first with his surname. We also 

 see that the raven, carrion crow, rook, and hooded crow are 

 closely allied to one another, as they all belong to the 

 single sept or ' genus ' Corvus* On the other hand, the 

 chough belongs to a group of crows distinguished from our 

 commoner forms by certain special peculiarities, in which 

 it agrees with two other existing species, and it is there- 

 fore removed from the rook and its immediate allies, and 

 placed in the separate genus Frtgilus. 



Ray's classification of animals was, at the time it 

 appeared, the best arrangement of the animal kingdom 

 which had been brought forward. It was not destined, 

 however, to live long ; and it was superseded, less than 

 forty years after Ray's death, by the system propounded by 

 the celebrated Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, whose life 

 may be briefly sketched here. 



Karl von Linne usually known by the Latinised name 

 of Linnaeus was born at Rashult, in the province of 

 Smaland in Sweden, in the year 1707. His father was 



* Many ornithologists now break up the genus Corvus into subordinate groups, 

 which are distinguished by special names. 



