Article II. ZIMMERMANN'S 'ZOOLOGLE GEOGRAPH- 

 IC^ ' AND ' GEOGRAPHISCHE GESCHICHTE ' CON- 

 SIDERED IN THEIR RELATION TO MAMMALIAN 

 NOMENCLATURE. 



By J. A. ALLEN. 



There seems to be a difference of opinion as to whether 

 Zimmermann's 'Zoologiag Geographicae ' ' is citable as an au- 

 thority in questions of nomenclature. Most systematic mam- 

 malogists appear to have ignored it altogether, but recently 

 Mr. C. I. Forsyth Major has taken it as authority for a name 

 applied to a West Indian species of Muridae, 2 where he cites 

 "Castor piloris Zimmermann, Zool. Geogr. 509 (1777)," for 

 the animal named Mus pilorides by Desmarest in 1826. 



Zimmermann's two works, the 'Zoologise Geographicae' 

 and the ' Geogr aphische Geschichte,' are constructed on 

 nearly the same general plan; the first is in Latin, the other 

 in German. The latter, however, is not merely a German 

 translation of the first, but an essentially different work. 3 



Zimmermann was one of the best mammalogists of his' 

 time, as regards his familiarity with the literature of the sub- 

 ject, and discriminating and conservative, far more so than 

 many of his contemporaries and successors. But as regards 

 nomenclatural form he was not a model, even for his day, in 

 this respect falling behind his contemporary Schreber, and 

 being much more lax than Pallas and Erxleben. In both 

 works Zimmermann, although binomial as regards technical 

 names, often employed vernacular names only, for genera as 

 well as species, even when defining them by a formal diag- 

 nosis ; while in the case of species he was apt to cite the names 

 given by previous writers as these authors used them, regard- 

 less of whether the generic element of the name conformed 



1 The full title is as follows: 



Specimen | Zoologiae Geographicae, | Quadrupedum | domicilia et migrationes | sistens. 

 Dedit, Tabulamque Mundi Zoogra- 1 phicam adjunxit | Eberh. Aug. Guilielm. Zimmer- 

 mann, | Professor Mathes. et Phys. Collegii | Carolini Brunsvicensis | | . . . . 

 [=quotation from Pliny, 3 HnesJ | Lugduni Batavorum, | Apud Theodorum Haak, 

 et Socios. | MDCCLXXVII. i volume, 4to, pp. xxiv + 686, and map. 



2 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. (7), VII, Feb., 1901, p. 206. 



3 " Auf diese Weise ist dies gegenwartige Buch allerdings eine Originalschrift, die mit 

 dem lateinischen nur einen gleichen Plan hat." Zimmermann, Geogr. Gesch., I, Vorrede, 

 [p. ii]. 



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