72 The Bad land Formations of the Black Hills Region 



importance of the completed skeleton, particularly if it is the 

 type specimen of a new species, is often very great.* 



THE CLASSIFICATION AND NAMING OF EXTINCT 



ANIMALS. 



The naming of animals, both living and extinct is closely 

 interwoven with their classification. Classification is a process 

 of comparison. Its object is to bring together the like forms 

 and to separate the unlike. This is best accomplished by com- 

 paring the various characters which are the most constant. The 

 natural result is the arrangement of groups within groups in a 

 continuous manner, the various groups being given particular 

 names, as, Kingdom, Subkingdom, Class, Order, Family, Genus, 

 Species et cetera. The scientific name by which any animal is 

 indicated is formed by combining the generic and- specific names 

 much as we combine our own family and Christian name except 

 that in the scientific nomenclature the specific term comes last. 

 To illustrate: the scientific name of the domestic dog is 

 Canis familiaris Linnaeus, Canis being the name of the genus 

 and familiaris the name of the species. The third non-italicized 

 portion is strictly a part of the name although this really refers 

 only to the naturalist who first carefully described and properly 

 ramed the creature. It is often omitted, especially in the case 

 of fairly common or well known animals or where there is no 

 mistaking the individual who gave the name. In scientific liter- 

 ature, however, and particularly in paleontology where, on 

 account of imperfect material, there is liability of error in deter- 

 mination this is usually given as it not infrequently becomes 

 essential for clearness in referring to the species. Omitting it 

 from the name for the time-being, the complete classification of 

 the dog may be represented as follows : 

 Kingdom, Animalia. 



Sub-kingdom, Vertebrata. 



Class,Maw7« alia. 



Order, Carnivora. 



Family, Canidae. 



Genus, Canis. 



Species, Familiaris. 



Variety, "Shepherd." 



Individual, "Shep." 



*The following recent publication will be found of much help 

 by those desiring information a© to details of preparation: Hermann, 

 A. Modern Laboratory Methods in Vertebrate Paleontology. Am. 

 Mus. Nat. Hist., Bull. Vol. 26, 1909, pp. 283-331. 



