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TO THE PRESTON NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. Among those circumstances which have directly retarded the progress of Zoology in Britain, there is one which has been conspicuously hurtful, the influence of the dogmas of the Linnean School. There have not been wanting naturalists in this country, who have regarded the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturae as the standard of all excel- lence in this branch of Natural History, and who have considered the classes, orders, and genera therein established, as sufficient to embrace all the species on the globe. Every attempt to em- ploy characters different from those made use of by LINNAEUS, has been stigmatized as presumptuous innovation ; the establishment of a new genus has been condemned as an unnecessary burden imposed on the memory ; the new species have been crowded into the established categories, though destitute of the prescribed claims of admission ; and all that is valuable in the history of an animal, has been con- sidered capable of being expressed in its trivial name and specific character. Though such has been the practice of the devoted admirers of LiN- NJEUS, it is not conformable to those principles which regulated the conduct of that enlightened naturalist himself. next |