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16 NOMENCLATURE 
ner intelligible to all other students of Natural 
History. 
Linneus devised such a system, and to him 
we owe a most simple and comprehensive scien- 
tific mode of designating animals and plants. 
It may at first seem no advantage to give up the 
common names of the vernacular and adopt the 
unfamiliar ones, but a word of explanation will 
make the object clear. Perceiving, for instance, 
the close relations between certain members of 
the larger groups, Linnzus gave to them names 
that should be common to all, and which are 
called generic names, — as we speak of Ducks, 
when we would designate in one word the Mal- 
lard, the Widgeon, the Canvas-Back, etc. ; but to 
these generic names he added qualifying epithets, 
called specific names, to indicate the different 
kinds in each group. For example, the Lion, 
the Tiger, the Panther, the Domestic Cat consti- 
tute such a natural group, which Linneus called 
Felis, Cat, indicating the whole genus; but the 
species he designates as Felis catus, the Domestic 
Cat, — Felis leo, the Lion, — Felis tigris, the 
Tiger, — Felis panthera, the Panther. So he 
called all the Dogs Canis; but for the different 
kinds we have Canis familiaris, tlie Domestic 
Dog, — Canis lupus, the Wolf,— Canis vulpes, 
the Fox, etc. 
In some families of the vegetable kingdom we 
