In order to make a clearly understood reference to an animal, or the remains of one, it is as necessary to give it a name as it is in the case of a person or a place. Before the time of Linnaeus (1707-1778), it was the custom to refer, for example, to a shell, in Latin[2] as "the little spiral shell, with cross markings and tubercles, like a ram's horn;" or to a worm as "the rounded worm with an elevated back." Improvements in this cumbersome method of naming were made by several of the earlier authors by shortening the description; but no strict rule was established until the tenth edition of Linnaeus' "Systema Naturae" (1758), when that author instituted his binomial nomenclature by giving each form enumerated both a generic and specific name. In plain words, this method takes certain life-forms closely related, but differing in minute particulars, and places them together in a genus or kindred group. Thus the true dogs belong to the genus _Canis_, but since this group also includes wolves, jackals, and foxes, the various canine animals are respectively designated by a specific name; thus the dog (_Canis familiaris_), the dingo (_C. dingo_), the wolf (_C. lupus_), the jackal (_C. aureus_), and the fox (_C. vulpes_). The generic name is placed first. Allied genera are grouped in families, (for example, Canidae), these into orders (ex. Carnivora), the orders into classes (ex. Mammalia), and the classes into phyla or subkingdoms (ex. Vertebrata). [Footnote 2: The Latin description was used more commonly than it is at present, as a universal scientific language.] Plants are classified in much the same way, with the exception that families and orders are, by some authors, regarded as of equal value, or even reversed in value; and instead of the term phylum the name series is used. Classification of the Animal Kingdom. NAME OF PHYLUM. | FORMS FOUND FOSSIL ----------------------+------------------------------------------------- I.--PROTOZOA | Foraminifera, Radiolaria. | II.--COELENTERATA | Sponges, Corals, Stromatoporoids, Graptolites. | III.--ECHINODERMATA | Crinoids, Starfishes, Brittle-stars, Sea-urchins. | IV.--VERMES | Worms (tube-making and burrowing kinds). | V.--MOLLUSCOIDEA | Polyzoa or Sea-mats, Brachiopods or Lamp-shells. | VI.--MOLLUSCA | Shell-fish: as Bivalves, Tusk-shells, | Chitons or Mail-shells, Gasteropods or | Snails, Pteropods or Sea-butterflies; | Cuttle-fishes. | VII.--ARTHROPODA | Joint-footed animals: as Trilobites, Cyprids, | Crabs and Lobsters, Centipedes, Spiders | and Insects. | VIII.--VERTEBRATA | Fishes, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals.