34 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [nOV. 10,. 



appear either in wood, or on plntes of copper. So little heed was 

 at this time given to S3'stetn, that Gcsner arranged his subjects 

 alphabetically. 



Fabins Colonna, a Roman pln'sician, now ]mblished two 

 treatises on natural history that were a positive advance in botli 

 a literary and scientific sense. A large pretentious folio called 

 Fish Book, in German, without author's name, published in 15T5, 

 has tolerable woodcuts of fishes, which are accurately drawn. 

 As was customary for a considerable time, cetaceans arc em- 

 braced in the category of fishes, and the usual monstrosities are 

 continued. Then follow tui-tles; and under the title cuttle- 

 fishes, the poly])s and octopi ai'e treated. Certain forms of 

 marine life seem to have been familiar from a long period. The 

 figures in all of the works illustrating the ccphalopods, as far 

 back as they are treated, are correct, and it is thus with most of 

 the MoUusca. Tliough so much of the grotesque seems to be 

 subject for tiie old autliors, the marine invertebi'ates are always 

 figured correctly; no tendency to caricature being noticed. 



*'Ferrante Imjierato, an apothecary of Na})]es," says M. 

 De Blainville, ''was the first naturalist distinctly to jniblish, as 

 the result of his proper observations, tlie animality of corals 

 and madre]iorcs; and he is said to have accomi)anied the descrip- 

 tions of the species Avhich fell under his notice, with illustrative 

 figures of considerable accuracy." His Historut Naturah ap- 

 peared in 1599. So little hold did this volume and its very im- 

 portant announcement have upon the minds of scientific men of 

 the day and of subsecpient time, that the reproduction of the same 

 views by Peysonnel m 1727, was regarded as the announcement 

 of an entirely fresh subject for the consideration of the savans 

 of the French Academy; and this in the face of the fact that 

 Ferrante's work had been republished in 1G72, 73 yeai's after its 

 first edition. A strong opposition to the theory of animality 

 was maintained by the Count Marsigli in 1711. Tiie ignorance 

 of the time was sufficient without the adverse exami)le of tins 

 nobleman. There was a tendency to prefer the vegetable theory; 

 and it I'cquired little more than the testimony of a titled savan 

 like Marsigli to settle the matter in the minds of the masses. 

 The Count had described the pretty sea objects as blossoms 

 affixed to stalks growing from rocks, or the solid ocean bottom. 

 Wiio, then, should say nay? Certainly, they have every a[)[)ear- 

 ance of ftowers, and flowers they were destined to be, in the 

 minds of the ]ieople of the period. Peysonnel could not yet pre- 

 vail over the faith of the unthinking in the infaHil)ility of rank, 

 and, seemingly, the evidence of their own senses; for the resem- 

 blances to vegetable forms are unspeakably strong. However, he 

 knew he was rio-ht — like Galileo — and so bided his time. 



