10 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY. 



edge the systematic results obtained the chief recognition, and 

 thus Wotton's work inaugurated the period of systematic zoology, 

 which in the Englishman Ray. but even more in Linnaeus, has 

 found its most brilliant exponents. 



Linnaeus, the descendant of a Swedish clergyman, whose 

 family name Ingemarsson had been changed after a linden-tree 

 near the parsonage, to Lindelius, was born in Eashult in 1707. 

 Pronounced by his teachers to be good for nothing at study, he 

 was saved from the fate of learning the cobbler's trade through 

 the influence of a physician, who recognized the fine abilities of 

 the boy, and won him for medical studies. He studied at Lund 

 and Upsala; at the age of twenty-eight he made extended tours on 

 the Continent, and at that time gained recognition from the fore- 

 most men in his profession. In 1741 he became professor of medi- 

 cine in Upsala, some years later professor of natural history. He 

 died in 1778. 



Improvement of Zoological Nomenclature by Linnaeus. 

 Linnaeus's most important work is his " Systema Naturae," which, 

 first appearing in 1735, up to 1766-68 passed through twelve 

 editions; after his death there came out a thirteenth, edited by 

 Gmelin. This has become the foundation for systematic zoology, 

 since it introduces for the first time (1) a sharper division into the 

 system, (2) a definite scientific terminology, the binomial nomen- 

 clature, and (3) brief, comprehensive, clear diagnoses. In classi- 

 fication Linnaeus employed four categories; he divided the entire 

 Animal Kingdom into Classes, the Classes into Orders, these into 

 Genera, the Genera finally into Species. The term Family was 

 not employed in the " ; Sy sterna Naturae." Still more important 

 was the binomial nomenclature. Hitherto the common names were 

 in use in the scientific world, and led to much confusion; the same 

 animals had different names, and different animals had the same 

 names; in the naming of newly discovered animals there prevailed 

 no generally accepted principle. This inconvenience was entirely 

 obviated by Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema by the 

 introduction of a scientific nomenclature. The first word, a noun, 

 designates the genus to which the animal belongs, the following 

 word, usually an adjective, the species within the genus. The 

 names Canis familiaris, Canis lupus, Canis vitlpes, indicate that 

 the dog, wolf, and fox are related to one another, since they belong 

 to the same genus, the genus of doglike animals, of which they are 

 different species. Linnaeus's method of naming was particularly 

 valuable in the description of new species, inasmuch as it at the 



