STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 91 



forms, and modern attempts at classification are 

 only improvements on the plan he laid down. First 

 we may notice his. admirable invention of the double 

 names. It had been the custom to designate plants 

 and animals according to some name common to a 

 large group, to which was added a description more 

 or less characteristic. An idea may be formed of 

 the necessity of a reform by conceiving what a la- 

 borious and uncertain task it would be if our friends 

 spoke to us of having seen a dog in the garden, and 

 on our asking what kind of a dog, instead of their 

 saying " a terrier, a bull-terrier, or a Skye-terrier," 

 they were to attempt a description of the dog. 

 Something of this kind was the labor of under- 

 standing the nature of an animal from the vague 

 description of it given by naturalists. Linnaeus 

 rebaptized the whole animal kingdom upon one 

 intelligible principle. He continued to employ the 

 name common to each group, such as that of Felis 

 for the cats, which became the generic name ; and 

 in lieu of the description which was given of each 

 different kind to indicate that it was a lion, a tiger, 

 a leopard, or a domestic cat, he affixed a specific 

 name : thus the animal bearing the description of a 

 lion became Felis leo; the tiger, Felis tigris ; the 

 leopard, Felis leopardus ; and our domestic friend, 

 Felis catm. These double names, as Vogt remarks, 

 are like the Christian- and sur-names by which we 

 distinguish the various members of one family ; and 

 instead of speaking of Tomkinson with the flabby 



