In an attempt to reestablish order, the British in 1842 proclaimed a new set of rules called the Stricklandian Code, but the French saw this as highhanded, and the Societe Zoologique countered with its own conflicting code. Meanwhile, the American Ornithological Society, for obscure reasons, decided to use the 1758 edition of Systema Naturae as the basis for all its naming, rather than the 1766 edition used elsewhere, which meant that many American birds spent the nineteenth century logged in different genera from their avian cousins in Europe. Not until 1902, at an early meeting of the International Congress of Zoology, did naturalists begin at last to show a spirit of compromise and adopt a universal code.
为了重新统一步调，英国人于l842年宣布了一套新的规则，叫做斯特里克兰法则，但法国人把这看成是专横跋扈，动物学会马上予以反击，提出了自己的与之相矛盾的法则。与此同时，美国鸟类学会决定把l758年版的而不是别处使用的1766年版的“自然体系”作为所有命名的基础，原因不明。这意味着。在19世纪，许多美国鸟儿被归于与它们的欧洲兄弟鸟儿不同的属。直到1902年，在国际动物学代表大会的一次会议上，博物学家们才终于开始显示出妥协精神，采用了统一的法则。

Taxonomy is described sometimes as a science and sometimes as an art, but really it's a battleground. Even today there is more disorder in the system than most people realize. Take the category of the phylum, the division that describes the basic body plans of all organisms. A few phyla are generally well known, such as mollusks (the home of clams and snails), arthropods (insects and crustaceans), and chordates (us and all other animals with a backbone or protobackbone), though things then move swiftly in the direction of obscurity. Among the latter we might list Gnathostomulida (marine worms), Cnidaria (jellyfish, medusae, anemones, and corals), and the delicate Priapulida (or little "penis worms"). Familiar or not, these are elemental divisions.
分类学有时候被描述成一门科学，有时候被描述成一种艺术，但实际上那是一个战场。即使到了今天，那个体系比许多人认为的还要混乱。以描述生物基本横剖面的门的划分为例，有几个门是大家都很熟悉的，如软体动物（包括蛤蜊和蜗牛）、节肢动物（包括昆虫和甲壳虫）和脊索动物（包括我们以及所有有脊骨或原始脊骨的动物）；除此以外，情况很快变得越来越模糊。在模糊不清的门当中，我们可以列举颌胃门（海洋蠕虫）、剌胞亚门（水母、水螅水母和珊瑚）和锯棘门（或称小小的“阴茎蠕虫”）。不管熟悉不熟悉，这些都是基本的门类。