eee ee 
Notice of British Naturalists. 219 
In the sixteenth century appeared—with the revival of learn- 
ing in England, Lister, Willoughby, and Ray; Belon in Mans; 
Rondelet in France; Saleciani in Rome; Gesner in Germany, 
Aldrovandus in Bologna, and others, producing among them im- 
portant works on the leading branches of natural history. 
_ The end of the sixteenth, and the beginning of the seven- 
teenth centuries, were signalized by rapid advances in know- 
edge. The art of printing, now come into general use, and the 
reformation, now fully established,—the former by extending and 
making more common all kinds of knowledge, the latter by free- 
ing the minds of men from that thralldom in which they had so 
long been held,—prepared, if they did not force the way, fora 
vigorous and successful emancipation of the human mind. Men, 
temarkable for the freshness and grasp of their intellect, arose, 
both on the continent, and in England ; and not afrai he 
hame of reform, they carefully scrutinized all the information 
and theories which they had received from their fathers, and 
boldly cast aside all which they did not find to be true. 
Our present improvement and progress in science we owe pri- 
marily to England. It was there, about 1600, that Lord Bacon 
the father of natural science, arose. ‘T'o that country, and to 
that master-mind, we are indebted for the logical precision which 
alone could direct our steps in the search after truth: and it is 
this period which we must mark as the new era in natural science. 
As the rising sun dispels the mists and fogs of the morning, so 
did the brightness of his exalted mind illuminate the darkness 
around. 
The object of this paper is to give a sketch of the progress of 
hatural history—limiting it, for the present, chiefly to the higher 
orders of Zoology in Great Britain, We shall, therefore, now 
ati an 
Mer’s Federa: « The Fish-call, or a looking-glass for fishes in the sea, very 
'seful for fishermen to call all kinds of fish to their nets, seins, or hooks.” “ An 
ofitable, when com- 
ic 
either by hot fevers, or otherwise, cannot take rest 
idaout eg amore moistening and cooling temper, 
ise.” "These patents were for fourteen years, and 
“2 Exchequer.—See Life and Adminis. of Edward, first 
7. Lister, Vol. I, p- 23, note. 
either by musical sounds, or 
paid £1 6s. 8d., yearly 
Earl of Clarendon, by 
