14 BuUetin American Museum, of Natural History. [Vol. XXVII, 



(a) Compilations by the earlier herbalists; 



(b) Formation of herbaria and private horticultural gardens; 



(c) Idea of classifying plants into groups and sub-groups after analogy 

 ■with the brigades of an army. Csesalpinus. 



Compilation of natural history lore. 



Beginning of the separation of myth from fact . Gesner, Aldrovandus. 



CONRAD GESNER, 1551-1558. 



Biological science, and especially zoology, did not respond fully to the 

 impulse of the renaissance movement until literature, politics, astronomy 

 and geographical discovery had made the most signal advances. Hence 

 in Conrad Gesner's 'Historia Animalium' (1551-1558) the myths of the 

 middle ages still linger, although a beginning is made in endeavoring to 

 separate truth from error, while the systematic work of future generations 

 is initiated in extensive illustrated descriptions of animals. Gesner (1516- 

 1565) had so far broken away from the scholastic spirit that he did not fail 

 to observe for himself, but he was essentially a compiler and was true to 

 scholastic traditions in relying too much on authority. Of Gesner's learning 

 and ability the late Professor W. K. Brooks (1895, pp. 49-59) conceived a high 

 opinion. Brooks says that in the preparation of the 'Historia Animalium' 

 Gesner "read nearly two hundred and fifty authors," and that his literary 

 learning was almost unparalleled, that he tried successfully to make his 

 work a complete library of all that had been observed and written about 

 animals up to that time, and that his enormous mass of material was very 

 judiciously selected. Many of his illustrations were grotesque, but those of 

 the more familiar animals were of high merit. He recognized the classes of 

 viviparous quadrupeds, oviparous quadrupeds, birds, aquatic animals, 

 serpents and insects. He did not attempt a natural division of the viviparous 

 quadrupeds. 



Gesner was thus a describer and compiler rather than a taxonomist; 

 nevertheless in the field of botany he was one of the first to group species into 

 genera (Whewell) and his 'Historia Animalium,' with the similar work of 

 Aldrovandus, furnished the raw material for later naturalists. 



WOTTON, 1552. 



'De Differentiis Animalium,' Paris. 



Of this author's work, which has not been accessible to the present writer, 

 Dr. E. Ray Lankester (1890, pp. 313-315) speaks as follows: 



"The real dawn of Zoology after the legendary period of the Middle Ages 



