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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



heigM of a short pike. And having drawn it from nature, we 

 here present its portrait." 



In 1556, King Henri II granted Belon, in recognition of his 

 work, a pension, which appears to have never been anything 

 but honorary. He was also given a residence in the Chateau de 



Madrid, in the Bois de Bou- 

 logne, where, during the re- 

 maining years of his life, he 

 studied natural science and 

 wrote his celebrated books. 

 One evening in 1564, as he was 

 crossing the Bois, on the way 

 to visit his friend Jacques du 

 Breuil, he was attacked, by 

 highwaymen, it is supposed, 

 and killed, in the forty-eighth 

 year of his age. 



The " Natural History of 

 Fishes " * marks Belon, accord- 

 ing to M. Grid, as the found- 

 er of modern ichthyology. 

 " While rectifying and enlarg- 

 ing what Aristotle had said, 

 the Mansian naturalist gave a 

 positive basis to icthyology by 

 descriptions and figures of a 

 considerable number of species. 

 In the ' Aquatilibus ' are de- 

 scribed a hundred and ten 

 fishes, of which twenty -two 

 are cartilaginous, seventeen fresh-water, and the rest sea fishes. 

 . . . The figures representing them are easily recognizable, not- 

 withstanding the simplicity of the style of the wood-engravings. 



" His philosophical mind had a very correct appreciation of 

 the genera. His groupings were made with a surprisingly just 

 instinct. To an indefatigable activity he joined vast erudition. 

 He brought to the front the study of nature and of the books 

 that treat of it. . . . The feature that especially prepared new 

 bases for the science of fishes was his observations on the tho- 

 racic and abdominal splanchnology of those animals. He gives 

 with infinite sagacity correct details respecting the liver, its 

 shape, and the number of its lobes ; the spleen, its position, vol- 



* " Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins, avec le vraie pcinturc et descrip- 

 tion du dauphin et de plusieurs autres de son espfece," 1551, with woodcuts ; '' Nature et 

 diversite des poissons, avec leurs portraicts," 1553; " Dc aquatilibus libri duo, cum iconi- 

 bus ad vivam ipsorum effigiem quoad fieri potuit," 1553. 



-Portrait op the Giraffe (after Pierre 

 Belon). 



