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method is due to Linnaeus, who applied it for the first time to Zoology 

 in the Xth edition of his Systema Naturse (1758). 



" It need, however, [not] be said that the merits of these older 

 naturalists remain intact, although the names given by them are no 

 longer used, and that we may acknowledge their just claim to estima- 

 tion on our part by adding the names of their genera and species as 

 synonyms.* 



" The Committee, therefore, thinks that the following ought to be 

 laid down as general rules : — 



" I. The oldest name, given according to the binary system to some 

 genus or species, must oe maintained. 



" Consequently, no further consideration need be given and no 

 use may be made of — 



" (a) Names, either Latin or Greek, which are given to any genus 

 or species before 1751, because the binary system was 

 not used at that time. 



" (V) Names given after 1751, to which the binary system was 

 not applied. 



" The reason that the Committee has chosen the year 1751 as the 

 commencement of the systematical literature, and not 1758 (when 

 appeared the Xth edition of the Systema Natura?, in which Linnaeus 

 for the first time has given names to the species of animals, instead of 

 the numbers used before that time), is that it wishes to secure the 

 right of priority to the authors, who, like Clerck, in his ' Aranei 

 Suecici' (1757), during the period of seven years between the publication 

 of the Philosophia Botanica and the Xth edition of the Systema 

 Naturae, wrote works on Natural History in which they used the 

 binary nomenclature. 



" There are authors who, even after 1751, followed the old method, 

 pointing out, for instance, a genus by a Latin name, but indicating the 

 species either by a number, a short description, or a name in one of 

 the modern languages. This was, among others, the method of G-eoffroy 

 in his well-known ' Histoire abregee des Insectes,' which appeared in 

 1764, notwithstanding he knew the Linnsean system. Though fully 

 alive to the great merits of the said author, whose excellent illustrations 

 and accurate descriptions of genera and species have rendered such 

 important services to the science of Entomology, yet the Committee 

 does not think it right, on account of the above-mentioned reasons, 

 that the generic names, used by him, should obtain a place in the 



* A verbatim copy, but vague in its wording : the word in brackets should probably be 

 suppressed. — Eds. 



