honours, have not hesitated to join in the cry, and to depreciate the merits of those
views upon which, modified and improved by their own enlarged opportunities
they endeavour to raise an independent and personal claim to originality. ’
It matters little to the true interests of science, although it may be of some
consequence to our own convenience, whether a certain assemblage of species
be termed a Subgenus or a Genus, a Family or an Ord e r ; whether w e restrict
the appellations of groups to the terms Kingdom, Glass, Order and Genus admitting
intermediate anonymous sections or divisions, or whether we introduce
such terms as Subkingdom, Family,-Tribe, Cohort, Subgenus, and the rest Of the
thousand and one names which have sometimes aided, and perhaps as often
burthened the mind of the student. To appreciate duly the advantages which
Natural History has derived from the labours of thé learned Swede, we should
consider not only the state ofthe science when he undertook the Herculean
task of reducing it to order, but the immense range of objects to which hé
endeavoured to apply his newly discovered views. ■ It is perhaps no unfair test
of a writers claim to individual merit, to measure that claim by the meed of
credit which he himself awards to the real deserts of others. Were this rule
to be fairly applied, how many of thfe popular authors of the ,,resent day
would sink into nothingness when compared with those great and original
minds which they affect to contemn, but In which they ignorantly owe perhaps
all that is really meritorious in their own vaunted productions. It is fair to
avad ourselves honestly and openly of all the advantages to be obtained from
the labours of our predecessors; but it is unfair, it is degrading to the science
we profess, when, by a fraud, not often punishable by human laws, but not the
less contrary to sound faith and honour, we desecrate, as it were, the sublime
and holy object of our devotion, the grandeur and purity of which might well
shame us from conduct so disgraceful, and excite in us feelings elevated far
above such mean and unworthy considerations.
The confusion in which Linnaeus left the Testudinata was but little improved
by his successor Gtnelin, who, though he considerably augmented the
num er of names, added but little to our real information as to the characters
of the species. An attempt was made by Schneider * to embody, in a descrip-
* AUgmeine NaturgwMAtc icr ScMUkrotm ; von Johan Gottlob Schneider, n 88.
live monograph, the species then known, which, according to his list, amounted
to eighteen ; of these, three are probably the young of species otherwise named
in the same list, which reduces the number known by this naturalist to fifteen.
His descriptions are generally sufficiently full for thè purpose of ascertaining
the species intended ; but it is aisé evident, from the stress'which hë laÿs upon
some of the general characters; that he was not aware of' their real value, nor
able to distinguish between those which belong to a whole-division of the group
and those which characterize species only. The “ Chelonographia” of Wall-
baum, and the scattered additions made about the same period by other Writers:
prepared the way for that portion ofthe “ Histoire Naturelle des Quadrupèdes
ovipares et Serpens,” which relates to Tortoises, by the Comte de Lacépède, who
contributed this addition to the celebrated “(Histoire Naturelle”’- of the Comte
de Buffon. It would be no easy matter to analyse satisfactorily this elaborate
work. That much was effected by it towards the improvement of Erpetology
cannot be denied ; but so much confusion of names and characters still remained
to perplex the student of this branch of Zoology, as "to leave perhaps little
room for unqualified praise. The uncertainty which, from the first, attached
to the specific distinctions of these animals, arising from the want of attention
to essential characters, and the differences existing between’ the young and
adult state of many Species, still obtained. The total absence, also, of anything
like a fully illustrated monograph "was; under these circumstances, a fatal
obstacle to the acquisition of a correct knowledge of the described species.
This great desideratum was however Undertaken by Schoepff, who, in 1792,
commenced his “ Historia Testudinùm*.” His object was to give figures of
every known species; but his premature death prevented the completion of
the work. As far as it went, thé figures are exceedingly correct and well
executed ; the accounts of the species full and clear, and the lists of the synonyms
evince not only an extensive acquaintance with all that had before been written
on the subject, but also no inconsiderable judgement in ascertaining and
clearing up the doubtful and confused synonymy of previous authors. There
is, however, no attempt at arrangement ; the whole of the species are still included
under the one generic term Testudo, and the land, the fresh-water, and
* J. D. Schoepff, Historia Tesludititim iconibus illustrata. Erlangæ, 1792, et sequent.