10 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
Pliny made but little effective use. If any further 
proofs were requisite to show the declension of 
natural history under the Romans, it would only 
be necessary to cite the fables and absurdities of 
fElian, and one or two others, with whom expired 
all records of the science for nearly 1400 years. 
(7.) The second era of our history commences 
with the revival of learning in the sixteenth century, 
and terminates with the institution of system by 
our celebrated countrymen Lister, Willughby, and 
Ray. It is difficult to trace the first dawn of natural 
history during this period, or to ascertain which 
was the first printed book that treated on the nature 
of animals. The Ortus Sanitatis*, printed in 1485, 
a most curious and exceedingly rare book, is the 
earliest we have seen; and, to judge from the 
grotesque rudeness of its figures, was, perhaps, one 
of the very first attempts to represent animals by 
wood-cuts. Passing over, however, this and similar 
memorials of a dark age, the first writer who really 
deserves notice is Belon of Mans, who was born in 
1517, and who seems to have made the history of 
birds his exclusive study. He may not have been 
the first writer on natural history, in regard to 
priority, since the revival of science, but he was 
most assuredly the first who treated the subject with 
any regard to system; and when we consider the 
unenlightened era in which he lived, and the diffi- 
* Ortus Sanitatis. De herbis et plantis, de animalibus et 
reptilibus, de avibus et volatilibus, de piscibus et natatilibus, 
de lapidibus, &e. 1485. Small folio. Ascribed by some to 
a Doctor Cuba. 
