ARISTOTELES. 1^5 



oysters. He examined, one by one, all the species 

 he could procure, and then classed together as a 

 subordinate generic group all those, which resem- 

 bling each other in the more important parts of 

 their structure, differed only in size or colour, or in 

 other points of little importance. 



Aristoteles founded the natural history of his 

 age, and no one came near to him. He left nobody 

 behind to follow his work. 



In after years, Plinius wrote on beasts, fishes, 

 birds, and insects, and on human and compara- 

 tive anatomy, but he made no great advance on 

 Aristoteles. Then there occurred as great a gap in 

 the study of zoology as happened in botany, and 

 many hundreds of years elapsed before progress 

 was made. 



Conrad Gesner, a Swiss, made the first great 

 step in zoology after the ancients, and his life was 

 a most remarkable one. A writer says of him, that 

 he was a shining example of the truth of the re- 

 mark, that those who have most to do, and are 

 willing to work, find the most time. He was a 

 great scholar, and a profound naturalist. He began 

 life in extreme poverty, soon became an orphan, 

 laboured whilst ill, and sacrificed himself for the 

 sake of others. A son of a poor skinner and worker 

 of hides, he was born in 15 16, at Zurich, and had to 

 suffer pinching poverty, with his numerous brothers 

 and sisters. An uncle was kind to the boy, 

 and began to educate him, but death stepped in 

 and he lost his kind relation. When only thirteen 



