Studies in Linnaean Method and Nomenclature

Ten essays, the first seven of them republished from various journals, with text illustrations and an elaborate Register, discuss Linnaeus's methods in the Systema Naturae and other works for cataloguing and naming animals and plants. They include a study (I, 1946) of his sources for the mythological trivial names of the butterflies, and another (VI, 1972) on his citations from classical poetry. His methods for cataloguing books are compared (III, IV, V, and IX) in order to clarify the historical relationship between the Linnaean system of binomial nomenclature for organisms and his abbreviated and usually binomial references to books or articles in his synonymies. The puzzling abbreviations «List. mut.» and «List. loqu.» are explained in Study II; «Caput Oculus» is shown in Study VIII to refer to a Chinese materia medica which had been presented to him; and Study X lists the persons who were honored with trivial names in zoology. «Linnaeus on Sumptuous Books» is the topic of Study VII.