EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 227 
1758-59. Carotus LINN mus. 
Karl Linné, better known to science by his Latin 
designation of Carolus Linneus, the reformer of Latin names 
in Natural History, has ever been justly renowned for his 
attainments. His ‘“‘ Systema Nature ” was commenced and 
finished while its author was still quite a young man, the 
first edition being offered to the Swedish public in 1735. 
Born two years after the death of John Ray, whose studies 
and Itineraries were the subject of the last chapter (supra, 
p- 215), the early work of Linnzus is held to have been largely 
shaped by the influence of his English predecessor. Professor 
Newton, with somewhat qualified praise, observes that “ In 
his classification of Birds” Linneus “for the most part 
followed Ray, and where he departed from his model, he 
seldom improved upon it.”* The Solan Goose is concisely 
described by Linneus in the 10th, 12th and 13th editions 
of the “Systema Nature,’ which were published respec- 
tively in 1758, 1766 and 1788, and it is there accorded a 
position in the genus Pelecanus, under the designation of 
P. bassanus. In the 12th edition we are told that it is 
found “Insula Scotiz Basse,” as if Linneus was not sure 
of any other breeding place, and the appellations of 
“ Gentleman” and “Jaen von Gent” are given as provincial 
synonyms. 
The epithet of gentleman, a colloquial expansion of the 
name gent or gant, as applied to the Solan Goose, is of respect- 
able antiquity, for it is said by Lucas Debes,t from whom no 
doubt Linnzeus, and also Pontoppidan, copied it, to have 
been used by fishermen as far back as the seventeenth 
century. In this connection it is instructive to go further 
and search for the origin of the Dutch and Flemish name of 
Jan-van-Gent, another appellation of long standing, and 
which is not obsolete yet. De Jan van Gent (“ Vogels van 
Nederland,” 1854-8, p. 571) is first met with in two works 
almost forgotten now, a ‘“‘ Voyage into Spitzbergen and Green- 
land” by Frederick Martin (1675),t and Mohr’s “ Forsog 
* «Dictionary of Birds,” Introd., p, 8. 
+ In his ‘‘ Ferox and Feroa Referata”’ (1673). 
t English edition, 1694, 
