Chapter 5 Section 2 "Erya" and the ancient animal and plant classification system

"Erya" is the earliest work on explaining words in ancient my country. It is roughly composed of scholars in the Qin and Han Dynasties, compiling old texts of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States, Qin and Han, and adding to each other.There are 19 chapters in the book, the last seven of which are: "Shi Cao", "Shi Wood", "Shi Chong", "Shi Fish", "Shi Bird", "Shi Beast" and "Shi Animal".These articles not only described more than 590 kinds of animals and plants, pointed out their names, but also included them into a certain classification system according to their morphological characteristics.For example, plants are divided into two categories: herbaceous and woody; woody is further divided into three types: trees, shrubs, and Xi 〔xixi〕wood (equivalent to palmaceae plants).The criteria for distinguishing are: "Twigs that grow up are trees", "Multiple trees are grown for irrigation", and "No branches are called trees".In terms of animals, "Erya" divides animals into four categories: insects, fish, birds, and beasts on the basis of previous classification studies, and further proposes the definition of animal classification, such as "two-legged and feathered, it is called a bird; four-legged And Mao is called a beast."This interpretation is still in use today.The four categories are also basically consistent with the modern animal taxonomy.That is to say, "worm" is equivalent to invertebrates; "fish" is the general name of temperature-changing animals such as fishes, amphibians, and reptiles; "bird" is the class of birds; "beast" is the class of mammals.Not only that, "Erya" has also carried out a deeper classification under the main categories.That is, in each category, animals and plants of the same family and genus are often grouped together.For example, in "Shicao", 蒮〔yuyu〕(mountain leek), 茖〔gege〕(mountain onion), (草xiajin)〔qingqing〕(mountain scallion), 蒚〔lili〕(mountain garlic ) together, these plants belong to the Allium genus in modern plant taxonomy. They belong to the modern genus Prunus; in "Release of Insects", the scorpion [tiaotiao], scorpion [tang] scorpion, sting, Mao scorpion, horse scorpion, and cold scorpion are arranged together. These animals belong to the modern cicadae; In "Fish", 蜬〔han Han〕, 魧〔hanghang〕, 鰿〔jiji〕, Xuanbei, Yu达〔chichi〕, Yuquan, 蚆〔pa〕, (worm sleepy)〔kun sleepy〕, (Insect responsibility) [ji and] lined up together, they are equivalent to the modern Baodaidae (Figure 3); in "Shi Bird", the owl [chixiao Chixiao], Mao owl, strange owl, and owl are lined up together, they are It is equivalent to the modern owl family; in "Shi Beast", tigers, leopards, white tigers, and black tigers are arranged together, which is equivalent to the current cat family.

"Erya" also put forward the concept of "genus" (but this is not exactly the same as the concept of "genus" in modern taxonomy).For example, "Explanation of the Beast" puts forward the "genus of residence" (actually refers to the species related to the mountain forest environment).Arrange the deer, elk, and fructus (qun group) of the cervidae together, and put the primates Mengsong (monkey), 猱 (ape), 貜 (juejue) father (similar monkey), 豦 (ju giant) ( Mimi monkey), 蜼 (weiwei) (long-tailed ape), and orangutan are grouped together; the "genus Rat" is proposed, and the rodent order Zuke (fen grave) mouse, Shun (xianxian) mouse (a kind of field mouse), Mouse mouse, mouse [si private] mouse (big field mouse), mouse [fei waste] mouse, mouse [wenwen] mouse, mouse [zhong] mouse, mouse [tingting] mouse, mouse [juju] mouse, etc. together to indicate their close relationship. "Shi Hu" more specifically lists "Equus", "Bovine", "Goat", and "Dog"; in "Equus", there are as many as 40 species of motors subdivided into various names ( Fig. 4); In "Shi Mu", the peaches are arranged with mountain peaches and winter peaches; the plums are arranged with or without real plums, Jiesi, and Li; Filled jujube, bitter jujube, no real jujube, 棯〔renren〕jujube, etc., means that the varieties have been classified.This cannot but be said to be a leap forward in classification knowledge.It shows that more than 2,000 years ago, people have recognized that certain groups of organisms are intrinsically linked.