﻿REMARKS ON NOMENCLATURE. 22$ 



Willdenow*,in the latter department, has digested several 

 excellent aphorisms on this head, nearly all of which 

 we are bound to adopt as being equally applicable to 

 ornithology. The advanced state of our science, how- 

 ever, requires several others. These rules will claim 

 our first attention ; and as the value of brevity and 

 perspicuity in scientific descriptions is no less necessary 

 to facilitate knowledge, we shall conclude this chapter 

 with some hints and directions thereon. 



(184.) Nomenclature divides itself into two branches ; 

 for all animals with which the bulk of mankind are 

 familiar, have two names : one being the scientific, the 

 other the vernacular. The first is derived from the 

 learned languages, — that is, from the Greek or Latin, 

 and is that by which the animal is called by naturalists : 

 the second is used by the great bulk of mankind, or 

 by the vulgar, and is the name belonging to the dialect 

 of the country. With these latter names, science, of 

 course, has nothing to do, because they are never used 

 where accuracy of designation is required : we shall, 

 nevertheless, offer some remarks upon them, after we 

 have given our first attention to the former. 



(185.) Scientific names are not only given to every 

 object or species in nature, but also to the different 

 ranks or divisions under which species are compre- 

 hended. But now that these^ names are so much mul- 

 tiplied, they would not be sunicient to convey all that 

 was desirable to be known. If the name of a class 

 was constructed like that of a family, how should we 

 know what was the rank of the division or group to 

 which it belonged ? Modern zoologists, therefore, have 

 fortunately hit upon an expedient by which we can 

 designate, in the lesser divisions, not only the group, 

 but the rank it holds in the scale of creation, by one 

 and the same word. This is accomplished by making 

 the last syllable uniformly the same in each of the fol- 



* The Principles of Botanv and of Vegetable Physiology, translated from 

 the German of D. C. Willdenow. Edinburgh, 1805. 1 vol. 8vo. 



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