THE NAME MAMMAL AND THE IDEA EXPEESSED. 541 



"mammifer.s'' in his Glossary, but did not otherwise use it.) This, 

 naturally, was an example which others followed. It was not until 

 the first half of the century had been past for some time that the 

 English word came generally into use. 



In the most trivial fiction the Latin '"'mammalia'' was used instead 

 of the English " mammals." An example of this may be given, inas- 

 much as it will also serve to show how, by accident or design, a pos- 

 sible solecism was avoided. Edgar Allan Poe, the precursor of Conan 

 Doyle as author of "detective stories,'' in 1841 published a thrilling- 

 story of The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The supposititious narrator 

 is an American resident in Paris, and has a French friend (M. Dupin) 

 notable for the acuteness of his analytical and detective facult3\ An 

 unaccountable murder of two Avomen was committed, and the police 

 as well as professional detectives of Paris had been unable to i^olve 

 the m3^stery. The amateur, M. Dupin, investigated, satisfied himself, 

 and explains to his friend his solution. "Read, now," says Dupin, 

 " this passage from Cuvier." The American summarizes in his own 

 language: "It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive 

 account of the large fulvous orang-outang of the East Indian Islands. 

 The gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild 

 ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these manmialia are suffi- 

 ciently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder 

 at once." 



Now, as it was an American that gave the account, it was perfectly 

 right, at the time in question, to use "mammalia." But if Poe had 

 put that word in the mouth of Dupin, or as emanating from the pen 

 of Cuvier, he would have done violence to French usage. The scien- 

 tific men of France as well as popular writers always used their ver- 

 nacular "mammiferes;" and if the American would have translated 

 to represent the French style he should have used "niammifers" or 

 "mammals." To have rendered it by "mammalia" (as many would) 

 would have been paraphrastic, but not translation of the spirit of the 

 French. 



The first writer to use the English word ""mannnals," at least to 

 any extent, was Dr. John Mason Good. In his Pantologia (Volume 

 VIII, 1818) he formally introduced the English name, under "Mam- 

 malia,'' in the following words: 



In English we have no direct synonym fur this term; quadruped or four-footed, 

 which has usually been employed for this purpose, is truly absurd, since one of the 

 orders have [sic!] no feet whatever, and another offers one or two <^enera that can 

 not with propriety be said to have more than two feet. We have hence thought 

 ourselves justified in vcrnacularizing the Latin term and translating "mammalia," 

 mammals, or breasted animals. 



In Volume XII, in the articles "Quadruped'' and "Zoology." Good 

 also used the word "mannnals" apropos of the classification of Lin- 



