Copies of these General Articles and Nomenclatural Notes can be obtained free of charge from the Executive Secretary, The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, c/o The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K. (e-mail: iczn@nhm.ac.uk).

 

Book Review

Index of the Books and Authors cited in the Zoological Works of Linnaeus

  Compiled by John L. Heller and edited by John M. Penhallurick. October 2007, The Ray Society, U.K. Publication No. 168. xlix, 174, liii-lxiii pp. Hardback, A4. ISBN 0 903874 33 4. Distributed by Scion Publishing Ltd., Bloxham Mill, Barford Road, Bloxham, Oxfordshire OX15 4FF, U.K. (www.scionpublishing.com, telephone +44 (0)1295 722873, FAX +44 (0)1295 722875). Price £60.00. Postage and packing £3.00 in the U.K./£5.00 overseas for the first copy, £1.50 in the U.K./£2.50 overseas for every subsequent copy.

Anthea Gentry
‘‘Littlewood’’, Copyhold Lane, Cuckfield, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH17 5EB, U.K. (e-mail: alantgentry@aol.com)

  After long delays in both preparation and printing, John Heller’s comprehensive study of Linnaeus’s references to zoological authorities has at last been published. I am fortunate to have had a typescript copy of the work for the past four years and have found it invaluable in tracking the sources cited by Linnaeus and in providing a key to their understanding.
  Linnaeus complained a number of times during his lifetime of the high cost of illustrated publications and advocated the use of word descriptions only. As a result many of his descriptions are brief and ambiguous in the light of modern taxonomy and the sources cited by him must be studied in order to discover the identity of the taxon. Indeed, Article 72.4.1 of the Code states that ‘‘The type series of a nominal species-group taxon consists of all the specimens included by the author in the new nominal taxon (whether directly or by bibliographic reference)...’’ and it makes clear that the references cited by Linnaeus form an integral part of his description and that material on which the descriptions and/or illustrations of the other authors was based is syntypic, whether or not it was examined by Linnaeus and whether or not it still exists. Thus, Linnaeus’s own specimens, those of the earlier authors, his description and those of previous authors cited by him are all of equal status and together they form what botanists call the ‘‘protologue’’.
  The Index was compiled by John Heller, a student and teacher of classical languages and literature. Born in Riegelsville, Pennsylvania, in 1906, Heller joined the classics faculty of the University of Illinois in 1949 and served as head of the department until 1966. In 1975 he became an emeritus professor. He was a member of the Society for the History of Natural History and developed a particular interest in the works of Linnaeus and the sources used by him. In 1959 Heller produced an index to the botanical sources used by Linnaeus (Index auctorum et librorum a Linnaeo (Species Plantarum 1753) citorum), published in the Appendix to volume 2 of the Ray Society’s fascimile edition of the Species Plantarum) and he adopted the same model for the zoological index. In 1979 Heller noted that compilation of the latter had been in progress for 20 years and that he had begun well before publication of the botanical index—but even he could not have foreseen that it would be another 28 years before publication of the zoological index.
  Heller died in 1988 before completion of his work and responsibility for bringing it to publication was taken on by John Penhallurick in 1999. Associate Professor Penhallurick had a career in communication at the University of Canberra and has an interest in ornithology. He edited photocopies of Heller’s typescript sent to him from Illinois and, while searching for a publisher, was referred to the Ray Society in London. He then discovered that the Council of the Society had approved publication of the work in 1994, based on a later copy sent by Heller to Alwyne Wheeler, head of the Fish Section in the Natural History Museum, London, and a Past President and Council Member of the Society. Penhallurick has skillfully combined the two versions and filled some of the gaps in the typescripts.
  Heller began his compilation with the references to the books and authors cited in the first volume of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758) but later enlarged it to cover the Fossilia Petrificata, pp. 156–174 in volume 3 of the 12th edition (1768), volume 1 of the 12th edition (1766–1767), and the Appendix Animalium, pp. 223–228 in volume 3 (1768). Heller included descriptions of the books and biographical data for all the authors mentioned by Linnaeus, references to contemporaneous and modern discussions of their works, and added entries for the authors that Linnaeus did not mention, i.e. part authors or editors of books, and authors of articles in learned journals and dissertations. Persons mentioned in footnotes, in introductory sections to the whole volume and to each of the six classes of animals, and in the descriptive notes which often supplement the synonymies and supply the name of an informant concerning a particular species and its habitat, were all incorporated. Finally, Heller made the coverage complete for all Linnaeus’s zoological works by adding the references cited in the Regni Animalis Appendix, pp. 521–552 in the 2nd edition of the Mantissa Plantarum (1771), the two editions of the Fauna Svecica (1746 and 1761), earlier editions of the Systema Naturae (Ed. 2 of 1740 and Ed. 6 of 1748), the principal museological works such as Amphibia Gyllenborgiana (1745) and Museum Adolphi Friderici (1754), and Linnaeus’s first extensive listing of species, Animalia per Sveciam observata, pp. 97–138 in Acta Upsaliensis, vol. 4 (1742).
  During a number of sabbaticals and visits to the U.K., Heller consulted publications in the British Museum, the Natural History Museum in London, the Wellcome Medical Library and the Linnean Society of London. He estimated that his Index included citations to 380 books (probably more if reprints, later editions and translations were counted), about 340 articles and dissertations, and some 610 names of persons.
  Linnaeus owned a considerable number of the books that he cited (which are now housed in the archives of the Linnean Society of London), including a number of expensive richly-illustrated publications. As Heller has noted, Linnaeus would have had access to other volumes in the libraries of the Swedish Royal family and of Count Carl Tessin. A further source, not mentioned by Heller, was the library of the University of Uppsala, where he was permitted to see the books but not to take them home for study alongside his specimens. Linnaeus also relied for descriptions on his own and others’ observations of living animals made in the field and communicated by letter, and on preserved specimens in the museums to which he had access (listed under Collectanea in the prefix to Ed. 10 of Systema Naturae). Other books he did not own were cited second hand (for example, Lister’s Conchyliorum historia cited in Systema Naturae, 1758, p. 744).
  Linnaeus’s citations are always abbreviated and often obscure in today’s world. He was not always consistent in his citations and it is sometimes a puzzle to find the edition of the work that he saw. I commend Heller and Penhallurick’s publication to all those who have the task of deciphering Linnaeus’s intentions and am confident that they will join with me in thanking the two professors.

Reference

Heller, J.L. 1979. Bibliotheca Zoologica Linnaeana. Svenska Linnésällskapets
  Årsskrift, 1978: 240–264.