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OUR ZOOLOGICAL ANCESTORS, 

 AND THEIR LABOURS IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE. 



No. I. — Joannes Goedartius. 



In the present advanced state of natural science, when at length it has 

 assumed its true position amongst philosophic minds in every civilized country 

 — when the Naturalist sees with pleasure his favourite study making such 

 rapid advances, from the investigations of many who are now pursuing that 

 path, formerly trod by a few, he is led to reflect on the process, often a 

 slow and painful one, which has led to so many and great results. Undoubtedly 

 the first care of the student of nature, on attempting to investigate the 

 objects of his study, ought to consist in acquiring some knowledge of the 

 labours of his forerunners in this particular sphere; for assuredly he must 

 sooner or later make himself versant with the rise and progress of his science, 

 if his aim be at all higher than that of the plodding collector of natural 

 objects, who neither knows how to use them, nor how intellectually to enjoy 

 them. It is with pleasure and almost with veneration that the student refers 

 to the fathers of his science, and holds converse with them in those monuments 

 of a past era, those writings which it is no less his delight than his privilege 

 to consult, as enabling him to appreciate and thoroughly to understand the 

 basis and value of the accumulated knowledge of his own day. 



The progress of systematic Entomology affords, perhaps, of all other branches 

 of Natural History, a more interesting field for historical examination. The 

 metamorphoses and peculiar structure of the little denizens of the insect 

 world, their habits and economy, their natural affinities, their classification and 

 rank in the scale of nature, and a thousand other points of interest, are 

 ju«t so many topics of slow elucidation, marked at the same time by many 

 erroneous conclusions on the part of the early zoological writers. In this 

 respect hardly any other department of natural science exhibits so plainly 

 the first dawning of light, and the gradual development of truth; the circle 

 of which, after remaining stationary from the time of Aristotle till the revival 

 of zoology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has at length expanded 

 under the influence of a more inquiring age, in the hands of some of the 

 brightest intellects that have ever adorned the literature of the world. 



But it is not our intention to dwell on the history of zoological science 

 properly so called; — this has already been very ably elucidated once and again 

 by other writers, so as to make even comment unnecessary; neither is it 

 to give a consecutive enumeration or review of the works of the older authors, 

 many of which are well known, or at least described at length in recent 

 works of easy access; we propose merely to notice in these pages those early 

 authors whose works appear to us to be little known, or which have been 

 passed over by biographers with little more than a bare allusion. By these 

 details we hope to instruct as well as to interesiu-tkoge of our readers whose 



VOL. III. 



