78 MEMOIR OF PLINY. 



truth which has served them for a basis, by recalling 

 to mind that these are extracts from the works of 

 travellers, and by supposing that ignorance and the 

 Jove of the marvellous, on the part of the ancient 

 travellers, have led them into these exaggerations, 

 and have dictated to them these vague and superfi- 

 cial descriptions. It has been alleged as another de- 

 fect in Pliny, that he does not always give the true 

 sense of the author he translates or copies from, es- 

 pecially when designating several species of animals. 

 Although we certainly possess but limited means of 

 judging with respect to errors of this kind, yet it has 

 been found that, on many occasions, he has substi- 

 tuted for the Greek word, which in Aristotle denotes 

 one kind of animal, a Latin word which belongs to 

 one entirely different. It is true, indeed, that one 

 of the greatest difficulties experienced by the ancient 

 naturalists was that of fixing a nomenclature, and 

 this want shews itself in Pliny more perhaps than in 

 any other. The descriptions, or rather imperfect 

 delineations which he gives, are almost always insuf- 

 ficient for recognising the several species, where tra- 

 dition has failed to preserve the particular name ; 

 and there is even a large number whose names alone 

 are given without any characteristic mark being ap- 

 pended, or any means of distinguishing them from 

 one another. If it were possible still to doubt re- 

 specting the advantages enjoyed by the modern over 

 the ancient methods, these doubts would be com- 

 pletely dispelled by discovering that what the classi- 



