PREFACE. Vil 
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 Nature” 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 Linn2vs, 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- 
NUS, 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- 
