Solution

The title and speaker of the quote are references to Carl Linnaeus, and the system of taxonomy that he invented in 1735. The three lines show a starting point and steps to move on the grid of different animals. By identifying the animals' scientific classification and figuring out how much the classification of subsequent animals differ (species, genus, family, order, class and phylum being 1-6), three number sequences are obtained. The quote is a reference to Henslow's swimming crab, which has the classification "Polybius Henslowii". This is a clue that a 4x6 Polybius square should be created, in the shape of the animal grid, with i/j and c/k sharing squares. By using the Polybius square to decode the three sequences of numbers, one obtains the names Berlin, Falk and Martin. By googling these three names together with Linnaeus, one finds that they are three of Linnaeus' apostles.