458 SOME QUESTIONS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



by Gesner. But none of those names were employed as true generic 

 designations. Genera, in fact, in the strictest seuse of the word, were 

 not used, by zoologists at least, 1 till the time of Linnaeus. 



There were certainly very close approximations to the idea manifest 

 in some of the older authors, such, for example, as Belon and Lang; 2 

 but their analogous groups were not strictly defined and limited, as the 

 genera of Linmeus and his followers were. The system has been one of 

 slow growth, and has developed in accordance with our knowledge of 

 nature and in response to the need for expressing the various degrees 

 of complication of the organisms. The species known to the natural- 

 ists of early times were few in number — at least, comparatively — and 

 the old students had no idea of the excessive diversity of form and 

 structure familiar to us. 



A census of animals and plants was taken by Bay shortly before 

 Linnaeus commenced his career, and enumerated less than 4,000 animals, 

 exclusive of insects; and of those it was estimated that there were 

 about "20,000 in the whole world." He evidently believed that the 

 entire number living would not be found greatly to exceed this. But 

 let Ray speak for himself. 



According to the author's classification, animals were divided into 

 four orders — " beasts, birds, fishes, and insects." The number of beasts, 

 including also serpents, that had been accurately described he esti- 

 mated at not above 150, adding that, according to his belief, "not 

 many that are of any considerable bigness, in the known regions of the 

 world, have escaped the cognizance of the curious." (At the present 

 day more than 7,000 species of " beasts," reptiles, and amphibians have 

 been described.") The number of birds "may be near 500, and the 

 number of fishes, excluding shellfish, as many; but if the shellfish be 

 taken in, more than six times the number." As to the species remain- 

 ing undiscovered, he supposed " the whole sum of beasts and birds to 

 exceed by a third part and fishes by one-half those known." The 

 number of insects — that is, of animals not included in the above 

 classes — he estimated at 2,000 in Britain alone, and 20,000 in the whole 

 world. The number of plants described in Bauhin's " Pinax" was 

 6,000, and our author supposed that " there are in the world more tban 

 triple that number, there being in the vast continent of America as 

 great a variety of species as with us, and yet but few common to 

 Europe, and perhaps Africk 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 



1 The genera of plants in Tournefort's work are perfectly regular, as well as defined 

 and illustrated, but the nomenclature is certainly not binominal. 



■Lang was by no means a binomialist. See note on p. 460. 



:: In a recent estimate of described species, 2,500 species of mammals are enumer- 

 ated and 4,100 species of reptiles and amphibians, the several classes thus aggre- 

 gating 6,900. This is probably an uuderi stima'te.— P. /. S., 1896, 306. 



