EARLY 

 VIEWS. 



DARWIN 

 AND 



EVOLUTION. 



SYSTEMATIC 

 NOMENCLA- 

 TURE. 



reason, the seat of the most important research work in 

 this science is located here. A generation or so ago several 

 European Universities lead by Munich, stood in the fore- 

 front of the rapidly advancing field of vertebrate pale- 

 ontology. 



The study of vertebrate paleontology may properly 

 be said to have begun in the days of the old Roman 

 Empire with Caesar's collection of fossil bones. In the 

 14th and 15th centuries fossil vertebrates were thought to 

 be "sports of nature." In the 17th and 18th centuries the 

 old theory of "sports" was discarded, and a new idea 

 that these fossils or animals grew in the rocks came to 

 take its place. As late as the 18th century it was popu- 

 larly believed that vertebrate fossil remains represented 

 animals that had been drowned in the great Biblical flood. 

 This discarded view is now spoken of as "the ante-deluvian 

 theory." 



Early in the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin 

 and Jean Lamarck replaced these earlier lines of thought 

 with their theories of evolution. Development along this 

 new idea of progressive change of species then became 

 rapid. It has been said that Cuvier would frequently 

 determine the genera of an animal by the study of one or 

 two bones. Subsequent isolated instances of accuracy in 

 this sort of determinative work can be cited, but today it 

 is generally regarded as a rather loose practice unless 

 another perfect skeleton is available for close comparison. 



The so-called "Binomial System" of nomenclature, 

 now used generally throughout vertebrate paleontology, is 

 modern. The scheme employed in this: One name is 

 used with an adjective which is descriptive. Thus the name 

 became the genus and the adjective the species. Then 

 came the grouping into families, and to indicate this family 

 grouping the ending (idae) became fixed. The nomen- 

 clature used in vertebrate paleontology, as distinguished in 

 species, is based upon the natural philology which, in turn, 

 is fundamental with evolution. The gaps between the 

 mammals are closed in many cases and in some instances 

 very perfect gradations from the earliest ancestral forms 

 to those of the living species have been worked out. But 

 the classification now in use depends largely upon the 

 concensus of opinion of a few very specialized experts in 



