364 Memorial of George Broivn Goode. 



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

 Purchas's translation: 



The Churchia is as bigge as a small Conie, tawnie, sharpe-siiowted, dog-toothed, 

 long-tayled and eared like a Rat. They do great harm to their Heiines, 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 {Inanna)^ the armadillos {Bardati) , the 

 ant-eaters, the sloth, the pelican, the ivor^^-ljilled woodpecker, and the 

 humming birds. 



There are found in the finnc 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 yet 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 l)eate her wings after any other .sort then 



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



better liken them, then to the little l:)irds which the lymners of bookes are accustomed 

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

 Their P^eathers are of manie faire colours, golden, yellow, and greene. 



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

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

 is ever^'where manifest. His materials are cla.ssified in .systematically 

 arranged chapters. His methods may be illu.strated by referring to his 

 chapter On tigers. 



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

 the first Spaniards called tiger.s — 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 .suppo.sed American tiger at 

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

 under 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 

 liLstory was Jean de lycry [b. 1534, d. 161 1], a Calvinistic mini.ster, who 

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

 Villegagnon in 1555, on the small i.sland in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, 

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

 and in 1578 pul)lished at Rouen a work entitled Voyage en Amerique, 

 avec la description des Animaux et Plantes de ce Pays. 



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 3^ear 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. 



