18 MEMOIR OF RONDELET. 



but, living widely apart from each other, they seem 

 to have had little or no intercourse or correspond- 

 ence on the subject of their common studies. — 

 Tliese works present several features of much in- 

 terest, and have not only exercised considerable 

 influence on the past state of Ichthyology, but may 

 be consulted with advantage even by the naturalist 

 of the present day, when, it might have been sup- 

 posed, every thing of value relating to such subjects 

 in writings of early date would have been transfused 

 into our own, and become j)art of the actually cur- 

 rent stream of knowledge. A Memoir of Salviani 

 has been prefixed to one of our former volumes on 

 Ichthyology, and we now proceed to give a similar 

 notice of his still more illustrious cotemporary, 

 Rondelet, who although he may be unknown even 

 by name to some of our readers, was declared by 

 the most learned men of his day, in a formal in- 

 scription on the front of the College of Montpellier 

 recording his merits, to have been " ingenii fcecun- 

 ditate, et doctrinas uberitate, toto orhe clarissimus." 



William Rondelet was born at Montpellier, a 

 city which has produced so many men of eminence, 

 on the 27th September, 1507- His father, John 

 Rondelet, was an apothecary in Montpelher. His 

 mother's name was Jane Renalde de ]Monceau. He 

 appears to have been a very delicate child from his 

 birth, and a distressing disorder communicated to 

 him by his nurse, so shattered his constitution, that 

 there was very little prospect of his ever attaining 



