RISE AND PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. 13 
together tortoises, whales, and seals; and concludes 
with giving us various descriptions and grotesque 
figures of certain marine monsters, designated as 
de montro leonino, de pisce monachi habitu, and 
de pisce episcopi habitu.e Where he found the 
extraordinary originals from which these cuts were 
taken does not exactly appear: they were probably 
fabricated from the skins of some large species of 
shark or ray, by the ecclesiastics of that period, to 
attract the superstitious veneration of the populace, 
by persuading them that even the sea contained 
monks and bishops. The letter-press exhibits all 
the prolixity and cumbrous learning of the age, 
with abundant quotations from Aristotle, yet without 
the least spark of his philosophic spirit or of his 
arrangement. With all these defects, this early 
specimen of ichthyology has great and even extra- 
ordinary merit in the excellency of the wood-cuts 
copiously introduced in its pages: they are bold and 
accurate, and in general so characteristic, that nearly 
all the species may be at once identified. Salviani’s 
work on the same subject appeared simultaneously 
with that of Rondeletius, both being printed, as before 
observed, in 1554; but the former is now very rare, 
and is not in our library: the figures, which are 
engraved upon copper, are generally mentioned as 
very good. While these two patriarchs of ichthy- 
ological science were directing their investigations 
to one branch of natural history, two other, equally 
zealous and more ambitious in their projects, were 
respectively labouring on a general history of all 
animals, influenced no doubt by the example of 
Pliny, whose work was more adapted to the mental 
