W. Turner, E. Wotton, John Gains 257 



Although this may seem to indicate that Turner was a 

 mere translator and compiler, this is not the case. As 

 Mr. A. H. Evans tells us : 



" While attempting to determine the principal kinds 



of birds named by Aristotle and Pliny, he has added 



notes from his own experience on some species which had 



come under his observation, and in so doing he has 



produced the first book on Birds which treats them in 



anything like a modern scientific spirit . . . nor is 



it too much to say that almost every page bears witness 



to a personal knowledge of the subject, which would be 



distinctly creditable even to a modern ornithologist." 



A contemporary of Turner's, Edward Wotton (1492- 



1555), born at Oxford and elected a Fellow of Magdalen, 



travelled for several years in Italy. He took his M.D. at 



Padua, and later held high office in the College of Physicians, 



and has been described as " the first English Physician who 



made a systematic study of natural history." His book, 



"De Differ entiis Animalium," published two years before 



Turner's Historia and dedicated to the same patron, acquired 



a European reputation. The copy of this book, a fine folio, 



in the British Museum, is said to be " probably unsurpassed 



in typographical excellence by any contemporary work." 



"De DifFerentiis Animalium" was deservedly praised by 



contemporary writers for its learning and for the elegance 



of its language. 



Dr. Caius (1510-1573), in his terse style, wrote "De 

 Canibus Britannicis libellus," 1570, and this was " drawne 

 into Englishe " under the name " Of Englishe Dogges," by 

 Abraham Fleming in 1576, and published in London. Caius 

 wrote his little book as a contribution to Conrad Gesner's 

 " History of Animals," but owing to Gesner's death it was 

 not incorporated in that work. For, from the sixth year of 

 Henry the Eighth until the death of Queen Elizabeth, all 

 the learned men of Europe who were interested in Nature 

 turned to Gesner, the incomparable naturalist of Zurich 

 (1516-1565), amongst whose many works of great import- 

 ance the stupendous " Historia Animalium " is perhaps the 

 most remarkable. 



In the year 1607, Edward Topsell, a member of Christ's 



8 



