August 15, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



245 



associate and close frieud of Artedi, and 

 from Artedi he obtained practically all his 

 knowledge of fishes. LinnEeus, the head of 

 the University of Upsala, primarily a bot- 

 anist, was a man of wonderful erudition, 

 and his great strength lay in the orderly 

 arrangement of things. In his lifetime, 

 his greatest work, the 'Systema Naturae,' 

 passed through twelve editions. In the 

 tenth edition, in 1758, the binomial system 

 of nomenclature was first consistently ap- 

 plied to all animals. For this reason, most 

 naturalists use the date of its publication 

 as the beginning of zoological nomencla- 

 ture, although the English naturalists have 

 generally preferred the more complete 

 twelfth edition, published in 1766. This 

 difference in the recognized starting point 

 has been often a source of confusion, as 

 in several cases the names of species were 

 needlessly changed by Linnreus and given 

 differently in the twelfth edition. 



In LinnEeus' system (tenth and twelfth 

 editions), all of Artedi 's genera were re- 

 tained save Lepturtcs, which name was 

 changed to Trichiurus. The following new 

 genera wore added: Cliimcera, Tetraodon, 

 Diodon, Centriscus, Pegasus, Callionymus, 

 Uranoscopus, Cepola, Midlus, Teuthis, Lori- 

 caria, Fistidaria, Atherina, Mormyrus, 

 Polynemus, Amia, Slops. The classifica- 

 tion was finally much altered; the Chon- 

 dropterygia and Branchiostegi (with Syng- 

 iiathus) being called Amphibia Nantes, and 

 divided into 'Spiraculis eompositis' and 

 ' Spiraculis solitariis. ' The other fishes 

 were more naturally distributed according 

 to the position of the ventral fins into Pis- 

 cis Apodes, Jugulares, Thoracic! and Ab- 

 dominales. The Apodes do not form a 

 homogeneous group, as members of various 

 distinct groups have lost their ventral fins 

 in the process of evolution. But the Jugu- 

 lares, the Thoracici and the Abdominales 

 must be kept as valid categories in any 

 natural system. 



Linnffius's contributions to zoology con- 

 sisted mainly of the introduction of his 

 most ingenious and helpful system of book- 

 keeping. By it naturalists of all lands 

 were able to speak of the same species by 

 the same name in whatever tongue. Unfor- 

 tunately, ignorance, carelessness and per- 

 versity brought about a condition of con- 

 fusion. For a long period many species 

 were confounded under one name. This 

 began with Linnsus himself. On the other 

 hand, even with Linnsus, the same species 

 often appeared under several different 

 names. In this matter it was not the sys- 

 tem of naming which was at fault. It was 

 the lack of accurate knowledge, and some- 

 times the lack of just and conscientious 

 dealing with the work of other men. No 

 system of naming can go beyond the knowl- 

 edge on which it rests. Ignorance of fact 

 produces confusion in naming. The ear- 

 lier naturalists had no conception of the 

 laws of geographical distribution. The 

 'Indies,' East or West, were alike to them, 

 and 'America' was a sufficiently exact 

 record of the origin of any specimen. 



Moreover, no thought of the geological 

 past of groups and species had yet arisen, 

 and, without the conception of common 

 origin, the facts of homology had no sig- 

 nificance. All classification was simply a 

 matter of arbitrary pigeon-holing the rec- 

 ords of forms, rather than an expression 

 of actual blood-relationship. To this con- 

 fusion much was added through love of 

 novelty. Different authors changed names 

 to suit their personal tastes, regardless of 

 rights of priority. Amia was altered to 

 Amiatus because it was too short a name. 

 Hiodon was changed to Amphiodon because 

 it sounded too much like Diodon, and other 

 changes much more wanton were intro- 

 duced, to be condemned and discarded by 

 the more methodical workers of a later 

 period. With all its abuses, however, the 

 binomial nomenclature made possible sys- 



