Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 65 



Gesner, Fuchsius/^ Mathiolus, Theophrastus, Paracelsus, and Dodo- 

 neus.^^ The glowworm is considered in liber 18, De Noctiluca, 

 cap. 77. Batman wrote: 



Noctiluca is a little beast with feete and with wings, and is therefore 

 sometimes accounted among Volatiles, and he shineth in darkness as a 

 candle, and namely about ye hinder parts, and is foule and darke in full 

 light, and infecteth and smiteth his hande that him toucheth: and 

 though he be unseene in light, yet he flieth light and hateth it and goeth 

 by night, and is contrary to another little one that is called Lucipeta, 

 that riseth gladly on light, as I sid saith, lib. 12. cap. de minutis vola- 

 tilibus, etc. 



According to S. Killermann,^^ lampyrids are included in the 

 beautifully illustrated Codex of Animals (1460, folio 193, 201) by 

 Petrus Candidus Decembrus (1399-1477), but William Caxton's 

 {ca. 1422-1491) Mirrour of the World (ca. 1490) does not appear 

 to treat of luminous animals. Another fifteenth-century compilation 

 which might be expected to include Itiminous insects is the Hortus 

 Sanitatis (1495) , attributed to Joannes de Cuba (Cube or Caub, 

 fl. late fifteenth century) . The 1536 (Argentorati) edition contains 

 quaint woodcuts of real and imagined living creatures, including 

 the Pyralis of Cypris, which lives in fire and dies whenever it flies 

 out, and the birds of the forests of Hercinia with shining wings, both 

 described by Pliny, but the firefly and glowworm are not included, 

 nor is there mention of the luminous dactyli (Pholas) so vividly 

 described by Pliny. 



In contrast to this meagre description, the middle of the sixteenth 

 century is famous not only for the classics of Copernicus and Ver- 

 salius but also for writings of the really great naturalists. At this 

 time a resurgence of interest in animals and plants led not only to 

 the collection of specimens, but to the accurate description of char- 

 acteristics and the recording of behavior, as well as beliefs concern- 

 ing the various species. The names of Wotton, Rondelet, Salviani, 

 Gesner, Belon, and Aldrovandi, in order of birth, have become well 

 known to the zoologist. 



The youngest of these men, Edward Wotton (1492-1555) , was an 

 English physician who corresponded with Conrad Gesner, and intro- 

 duced zoology to medical students. He wrote De Differentiis Ani- 

 malium, libri decern (Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1552) , which described 

 a number of luminous animals, for example Cicindela and Dactylus 



^^ Leonard Fuchs (1501-1565), German physician and botanist. 



i^Reinbert Dodoens (1518-1585), botanist and professor of medicine at Leiden. 



i^S. Killermann, Ztschr. fiir Geschichte der Zool. 6: 113-221, 1914. 



