INTRODUCTION. 
y 
the specific names, there is comparatively little difficulty 
in the application of this simple rule ; but generic names 
have been used by different authors in senses so widely 
different, and the groups which they were meant to de- 
signate have been so variously extended or restricted, 
that it is no easy matter to determine, where several 
names have been used, w r hich of them ought to be pre- 
ferred. It is needless, however, to enter into the details 
of nomenclature further than to observe, that to the 
name adopted for the genus is appended the specific 
name under which the animal was first described. If 
the generic name adopted be different from that first 
employed for the species after the establishment of the 
Linnaean system of nomenclature, the Linnsean name 
under which it was first described follows as a synonyme, 
and where the animal has received more than one spe- 
cific name, these names are also given. But it has been 
thought unnecessary to load the Catalogue with any other 
generic names w T here no change has been made in the 
specific. Thus, for instance, after Macacus Sinicus , 
Desm., (the name adopted,) the synonyma given are, 
Simia Sinica , Linn., and Cynocephalus Sinensis , Latr., 
these names being sufficient for all the purposes of iden- 
tification, without adding Cercopithecus Sinicus, Kuhl, 
Cercocebus Sinicus, Geoff., and Pithecus Sinicus , Desm., 
which have reference only to the peculiar views of those 
authors with regard to the limitation and nomenclature 
of the genera proposed or adopted by them. In those 
cases where the two sexes of the same species, or any 
particular individual state or variety belonging to it, 
have been differently named, such names (belonging ex- 
clusively to the state or individual so described) are 
placed after the reference to the specimen to which they 
severally apply. 
