60 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



in 1789, published the descriptions and figures of 

 some new birds; and subsequently, in 1790, he took 

 up the examination of the much neglected class of 

 reptiles, intending to treat upon them in detail, but, 

 unfortunately, the work only reached to the second 

 number : this was the more to be regretted, since 

 Merram had evidently paid great attention to 

 these animals. Hermann, the professor of 'Strasburg 

 in 1783, deserves to be particularly mentioned, as 

 much for his systematic descriptions*, published 

 after his death, as for his very curious and valuable 

 work on the affinities of animals, wherein he brings 

 into comparison individuals of different orders, re- 

 sembling each other. These tables are well worth 

 the perusal, and even study, of the philosophic 

 zoologist; for though Hermann was perpetually 

 confounding the two relations of affinity and ana- 

 logy, yet we can here trace the faint germ of those 

 enlarged views on the natural system, which, after a 

 lapse of many years, were to be so much expanded. 

 His son inherited the taste of his father, and pub- 

 lished a work on apterous animals; but this we 

 have not seen. 



(26.) Ichthyology, one of the first departments of 

 natural history which engaged the attention of the 

 writers of the sixteenth century, had received but 

 few additions since the time that Linnaeus began his 

 splendid career. Dr. Garden, one of his most valu- 

 able and learned correspondents f , had supplied him 



* J. Hermann. Observafiones Zoologicae PosthumEe. Stras- 

 burg, 1804. 1 vol. 4to. — Tabula Affinitatum Animalium. 

 Strasburg, 1783. 1 vol. 4to. 



•J- See Linn. Corr. 



