BELON 41 



The life of Belon was full of labour and excitement. 

 He was born in Maine, near the city of Le Mans. As 

 a young man he was patronised by the Chancellor of 

 France, by a bishop, and by two cardinals, Tournon and 

 Chastillon. Thus aided, he went to Germany, where he 

 studied botany under Valerius Cordus, among others. 

 After this he set out to explore the Mediterranean 

 countries, travelling in Turkey, Greece, and the Greek 

 islands, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and the 

 Sinaitic Peninsula (1546-9). Shortly after his return 

 he paid a visit to England, where he fell in with the 

 Venetian ambassador, Daniel Barbaro, who showed him 

 drawings of three hundred fishes of the Adriatic, and 

 permitted him to copy them. The rest of the naturalist's 

 life was extremely unlucky. The French king granted 

 him a pension, which was left unpaid, and Belon was 

 reduced to great straits. At last he was set upon in 

 the Bois de Boulogne and murdered ; the assassin was 

 never discovered. 



The chief writings of Belon are : — (1) His travels, in 

 which he sets down all that he could learn or conjecture 

 respecting the remarkable animals named in ancient 

 authors {infra, p. 54). (2) His dissertation on the 

 dolphin. (3) His book of aquatic animals, which has 

 been cast a little into the shade by the more exact book 

 of Kondelet ; and (4) his book of birds, the best which 

 the sixteenth century could produce. At the time of 

 his premature death Belon was translating Theophrastus 

 and Dioscorides. 



Belon's dissertation on the dolphin occupies a large 

 part of his Histoire Naturelle des Estranges Poissons 

 Marins. Its primary purpose was to identify and 

 describe the dolphin represented on ancient works of 

 art. The author easily decides that the dolphin of the 



