364 ' Memorial of George Brozun Goode. 



description in Oviedo's Sumario, employing the quaint phraseology of 

 Purchas's translation: 



The Churchia is as bigge as a small Coiiie, tawnie, sliarpe-snowted, dog-toothed, 

 long-tayled and eared likea 7?a/. They do great harm to their Hennes, killing some- 

 times twenty or more at once to sucke their bloud: And if they then have young, 

 shee carrieth them with her in a bagge of skin under her belly, running alongst the 

 same like a Satchell, which shee opens and shuts at pleasure to let them in and out.' 



He characterized and described at length many other animals, among 

 them the manatee, the iguana (^luanna), the armadillos {Dardati), the 

 ant-eaters, the sloth, the pelican, the ivory-billed woodpecker, and the 

 humming birds. 



There are found in the firme land [he wrote] certaine birds, so little that the 

 whole bodie of one of them is no bigger then the top of the biggest finger of a mans 

 hand, and j^et is the bare body without the feathers not half so bigge. This Bird, 

 besides her littlenesse, is of such velocitie and swiftness in flying, that who so seeth 

 her flying in the aire, cannot see her flap or beate her wings after any other sort then 



doe Dorres, or the Hiimble Bees, or Beetles And I know not whereunto I may 



better liken them, then to the little birds which the lymners of bookes are accustomed 

 to paint on the margent of Church Bookes, and other Bookes of Divine Service. 

 Their Feathers are of manie faire colours, golden, yellow, and greene. 



That the spirit of Oviedo's work was scientific and critical, and not 

 credulous and marvel-seeking, like that of many of his contemporaries, 

 is everywhere manifest. His materials are classified in systematically 

 arranged chapters. His methods may be illustrated by referring to his 

 chapter On tigers. 



"In Terra Firma," he begins, "are found many terrible beasts which 

 the first Spaniards called tigers — which thing, nevertheless, I dare not 

 affirm." He then reviews concisely and criticall}^ what is known of 

 tigers elsewhere, and goes on to describe the supposed American tiger at 

 length, and in such terms that it is at once evident that the mammal 

 luider discussion is one of the spotted cats, doubtless the jaguar {Fclis 

 onca).'' 



The second in order of time to publish a book upon American natural 

 history was Jean de lycry [b. 1534, d. 161 1], a Calvinistic minister, who 

 was a member of the Huguenot colony fomided by the Chevalier de 

 Villegagnon in 1555, on the small island in the ba)^ of Rio de Janeiro, 

 which still bears his name. He remained in Brazil less than five years, 

 and in 1578 published at Rouen a work entitled Voyage en Amerique, 

 avec la description des Animaux et Plantes de ce Pa3's. 



Joseph d'Acosta was another Spanish explorer who preceded Harriot, 

 and was a man of much the same school and temper of mind. Born 

 in the province of L,eon about the year 1539, he entered the society of 

 Jesuits at the age of fourteen, and in 1571 went to Peru, where he trav- 

 eled as a missionary for seventeen years. After his return to Spain 



'Sumario, Chap. XXVII, p. 491. Purchas, His Pilgrimmes, Chapter III, 1625, 



P- 995- 



^Idem, Chap. XI, p. 487. 



