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. 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 Rondel etius, 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 



