476 



SOME QUESTIONS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



iuto much greater detail ; he admitted as many as eleven categories, 

 which may be roughly compared with modern groups as follows : 



Agmen 



Acies 



Class 



Phalanx 



Gohors 



Ordo 



Missus 



Sectio 



Ooetus 



Genus 



Species 



Eubrisanguia 



[=Vertebrata] 



j Warm-blooded 



iCold-blooded 



Mammalia 



rP< data 



<Pinnepedia 



IPinnata 



fTJnguiculata 



lUngulata 



Subkingdom 



Superclass 

 Class 



Subclass 



Superorder 



Order 



Suborder 



Family 



Subfamily 



Genus 



Species 



These groups are not exactly comparable with any of recent systema- 

 tists, inasmuch as Storr proceeded from a physiological instead of a 

 morphological base in his classification. The only work in which this 

 classification was exhibited was in his " Protlromus Methodi Mamma- 

 liuin," published in 1780. 



With this exception the naturalists of the last century practically 

 recognized only four categories — species, genera, orders, and classes. 

 Families were introduced into the system by Latreille. The word 

 "family," it is true, was not unknown previously, but it had been used 

 only as a synonym for order. In botany such usage even prevails to 

 some extent at the present day, and persists as a heritage of the past. 

 The French botanists used "famille" as the equivalent of "ordo." 

 Our English and American botanists followed and used "order" as 

 the more scientific designation and "family" as a popular one; Gray, 

 for example, calling the family represented by the buttercups the 

 "Order Banunculacea?," or "Crowfoot Family." But in zoology the 

 two names became early differentiated, and while order was continued 

 in use with the approximate limits assigned to it by Linnaeus, family 

 was interposed as a new category, intermediate between the order and 

 genus. At first this category generally was given a descriptive desig- 

 nation, but soon the tendency to employ as a part of the designation 

 the stem of the principal generic name became marked, and the use of 

 the patronymic suffix -idee in connection with a generic name was 

 adopted, and as time has advanced has become more and more general.' 

 But the assent to this method is not universal. There are still some 

 excellent zoologists who refuse to be bound by the rule and who adopt 

 the oldest family name, whether it be denominative or patronymic and 

 whatever may be the termination. 



The five categories thus recognized were very generally admitted, 

 and for a long time were the only ones recognized by many naturalists. 



