40 MEMOIR OP GESNER. 



learning had procured him, encouraged his design 

 by transmitting specimens, and remarks on the ani- 

 mals of their respective countries.* The jour- 

 neys also which he had an opportunity of making, 

 afforded him a rich harvest of materials, of which 

 he did not fail to avail himself to the uttermost. 

 Still it is surprising how he could accomplish so 

 much, in the comparatively limited time which he 

 could devote to the task. 



The work in question is divided into five books, 

 generally bound up, as he himself recommended, in 

 three folio volumes. The first part, printed at Zu- 

 rich in 1551, treats of viviparous quadrupeds; the 

 second, published in 1554, of oviparous quadrupeds ; 

 the third, of the date 1 555, of birds ; and the fourth, 

 1556, of fishes and other aquatic animals. The 

 fifth part was a posthumous publication, drawn up 

 from Gesner's manuscripts by James Carron, a phy- 

 sician of Frankfort. It is said to be rarer than the 

 others; it treats of serpents, and has usually ap- 

 pended to it a treatise on the scorpion, published 

 from our author's papers under the superintendence 

 of Caspar Wolf. The two latter treatises did not 

 appear till 1587, that is, twenty-two years after 

 the author's decease. 



Besides this, the original edition, it may be pro- 



* In the list of contributors, to whom he expresses his obli- 

 gations, we find the names of Gulielmus Turnerus, Anglus ; 

 Jo. Caius, medicus Londini clarissimus ; Jo. Fauconerus, An- 

 glus ; Jo. Parkhurstus, Anglus, theologus et poeta elegantissi- 

 mus ; and Theodorus Beza. 



