October 23, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



583 



and Asia. And if, on the other side the 

 equator, there be much land still remaining 

 undiscovered, as probably there may, we 

 must suppose the number of plants to be 

 far greater. What," he continues, " can we 

 infer from all this? If the number of 

 creatures be so exceeding great, how great, 

 nay, immense, must needs be the power 

 and wisdom of Him who formed them all !" 



About 375,000* species of animals are now 

 known, and of insects we still know the 

 smaller portion. f 



As knowledge of species of animals and 

 plants increased, the necessity of system in 

 registering them became apparent. Lin- 

 naeus and Artedi especially appreciated this 

 necessity, and early applied themselves to 

 the correction of existing evils and the ref- 

 ormation of the classification and nomen- 

 clature of all the kingdoms of Nature. The 

 Latin language had been long the means of 

 iniercourse among the learned, and was 

 naturally selected as the basis of nomen- 

 clature. Instead of Latin words used as 

 equivalents or translations of vernacular, 

 by Linnaeus and Artedi they were taken 

 especially and primarily for scientific use. 

 The various hinds of animals became the 

 more exact genera of naturalists. A new 

 language, or rather vocabulary of proper 

 names, was developed with the Latin as the 

 basis. As no adequate idea was at first had 

 of the magnitude of the subject, rigorous 

 codes of laws were formulated on the as- 

 sumption that philological questions were 

 involved rather than the means for the ex- 

 pression of facts. But soon the bonds that 

 had been framed for the restriction of the 



*A census of animals recently taken under the 

 superintendence of Dr. Sclater gave 386,000 species. 

 P. Z. S., 1896, 307. (New note. ) 



t The late Dr. C. V. Eiley even vpent so far as to 

 say "that there are 10,000,000 species of insects in 

 the world would be, in (his) judgment, a moderate 

 estimate." The largest previous estimate, by Sharp 

 and Walsingham, 2,000,000, was termed by Eiley 

 * extremely low.' 



),:■ 



new vocabulary were broken. The idea 

 dawned upon men that they had to do with 

 natural objects rather than philological 

 niceties, and that which was most condu- 

 cive to facile expressions or exhibitions of 

 facts was more to the purpose than Prisci- 

 anic refinements. Linnseus himself eventu- 

 ally refused to be bound by the laws which 

 he had originally framed. The early com- 

 panion of Linnseus — Artedi— who had co- 

 operated with him, and also framed a simi- 

 lar code for Ichthyology especially, was 

 prematurely lost to science. The fact that 

 Artedi devised the first code of laws affect- 

 ing zoology has been generally overlooked, 

 and a few of his ' canons ' may be noticed 

 here. The extent to which each one of the 

 two — Linnseus and Artedi — influenced the 

 other cannot now be learned, nor will it be 

 necessary to consider here who of the two 

 was the abler naturalist. It must suffice 

 that there was almost perfect agreement be- 

 tween Artedi and Linnseus in the spirit of 

 the laws they respectively framed. 



COMMENCEMENT OF BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE. 



The question that has been most agi- 

 tated of late is, what time shall we recog- 

 nize as the starting-point for the binomial 

 nomenclature ? Even now not all will be 

 bound by any such limit for generic nomen- 

 clature ; but those who will are divided 

 into two main camps — those who start from 

 the tenth edition of the Linnsean ' Systema 

 Naturae,' published in 1758, in which the 

 binomial nomenclature was first universally 

 applied, and those who advocate the twelfth 

 edition of the ' Systema/ published in 1766, 

 the last which appeared during the life of 

 Linnseus. 



But it may be premised here that even 

 the fact that Linnseus was the first to devise 

 the system of binomial nomenclature is not 

 conceded by all. It has been claimed that 

 about two centuries before Linnaeus pub- 

 lished his 'Philosophia Botanica,' Belon 



