28 MEMOIR OP 



where. All tliese names are not to be considered 

 as an unnecessary display of scholarship, because, 

 in fact, at this and previous periods, when the true 

 principles of classification were unknovrn, the names 

 were indispensable in relation to that matter, which 

 of all others most confused naturalists, viz., the cor- 

 rectidentification of the species ; and even after all 

 their care, much uncertainty still remained. The 

 fourth column contains what is denominated the ' at- 

 tributa^' a word of someAvhat extended signification, 

 and made to comprehend the properties, qualities, lo- 

 cality, &c. as will immediately be illustrated. The re- 

 maining six, contain accurate references to the works 

 of previous authors, wherein the information supphed 

 in the attrihuta is authenticated, the first five being 

 assigned to those who were regarded as the chief 

 authorities in the science, viz., to Aristotle, Oppian, 

 Pliny, Athenius, and /Elian, and the last not to 

 one, but to all the remaining authorities, or rather 

 authors, not confined to Natural History only, but 

 referring to such travellers, historians, and even 

 poets, as had made interesting allusions to the ani- 

 mals under review. This last list is of course some- 

 what heterogeneous, and shows the extended reading 

 of the author. It contains numerous references to the 

 writings of such men as Hesiod, Heroditus, Hesy- 

 chius and Pausanius, Strabo, Dioscorides, Cicero, 

 Galen, and Ausonius ; among the poets, to Terence, 

 Ovid, and Yirgil, also to Suidas and Massaria ; 

 among the Fathers, as they are called, to Clemens 

 Alexandrina, St. Basil, Ambrose, and Isidore of 



