REMARKS ON NOMENCLATURE. 
229 
\yill(lenow*jin the latter department, has digested several 
excellent aphorisms on this head, nearly all of which 
we are bound to adopt as heing 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. 
( 1 8 h.) N omenclature divides itself into two branches ; 
for aU animals with which the bulk of mankmd are 
familiar, have two names : one being the scientific, the 
other the vernacular. The first is derived from the 
learned languages, — that is, from die Greek or Latin, 
and is that by wdiich 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, oi 
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 
obiect 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 sufficient 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 ma uig 
the last syllabic uniformly the same in each of t e o - 
* The Principles of Botany anil of Vegetable Physiology, translated from 
the German Of D. U. WtlUlenow. Edinburgh, I&Uj. Iv . 
Q 3 
