NO. I HISTORY OF ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE STEJNEGER 1/ 



As it was, harmony had been achieved and a single code adopted by 

 practically all zoologists. It is true that the American ornithologists 

 have continued to follow their A. O. U. Code in their Check List of 

 North American Birds, but the differences between the two codes are 

 chiefly of a verbal nature with a somewhat different arrangement, so 

 that in the introduction to the revised edition of the A. O. U. Code 

 it could be truthfully stated (Code of Nomencl., Rev. Ed., 1908, 

 p. xxiii) : 



" The latest and by far the most authoritative code, that of the 

 Nomenclature Commission of the International Zoological Congress, 

 issued in 1906, embodies all its [A. O. U.] principles and contains 

 nothing antagonistic to them. A few additional points are covered, 

 and others are treated in greater detail. Thus after the lapse of 

 twenty years, the A. O. U. Code of Nomenclature became practically 

 the official Code of an international association of zoologists." 



Moreover, when article 30 of the International Zoological Code 

 was amended in 1907, the A. O. U. canons 21-24 were likewise 

 amended by the bodily acceptance of article 30, I. Z. C. 



IV. BINARIANS AND BINOMINALISTS 



Whether Tournefort's genera of 1700 are "something quite dif- 

 ferent " from Linnaeus' conception or not, and whether consequently 

 the " glory " of having invented the '' genus " in the sense in which 

 it has been handed down from the great Swede to us belongs to him, 

 may be regarded as immaterial in the present connection. It will be 

 sufficient to repeat here that the Linnaean genus concept assumed defi- 

 nite shape in 1735 with Linnaeus' first edition of his Systema Naturae 

 and was further elaborated and developed in the following editions. 

 The species concept and species terminology, as distinct from the 

 genus terminology, developed pari passu with the genus concept. 

 In fact, with Linnaeus the denomination was at least of equal impor- 

 tance with the differentiation. It was to him the " filum Ariadneum " 

 which led out of chaos ; he proclaimed already in 1735 : " Divisio & 

 Denominatio fundamentum nostrae Scientiae sint." 



The genus concept of Linnaeus was accepted and applied by prac- 

 tically everyone of his pupils and contemporaries after 1735. It was 

 the identical concept which appears in Artedi's posthumous Ichthyo- 

 logia, edited by Linnaeus himself in 1738. As a matter of fact, he 

 had already incorporated the Artedian genera in his 1735 scheme: 

 " In Ichthyologia nullam ipse elaboravi Methodum, verum suam no- 

 biscum communicavit summus aevi nostri Ichthyologus, Pefr. Artcdi, 

 Succus, qui in distinguendis Piscium Generibus Naturalibus, & 



