1 8 NATURAL HISTORY. 



possible to pass at almost a single step from the phil- 

 osopher of Stagira to John Ray, one of the first of the 

 great British naturalists. With the death of Aristotle, 

 the scientific prosecution of natural history practically 

 came to a close, not for a short time merely, but for a 

 period of many centuries. 



The Roman empire, nearly four hundred years later, 

 produced Pliny the Elder, whose name as a naturalist is 

 familiar to every one. In truth, however, Pliny hardly 

 deserves this title at all ; since his great work the 

 ' Historia Naturalis ' is really a kind of cyclopaedia, in 

 which little or nothing deserving of the name of ' science ' 

 can be detected. It is simply a huge compilation of 

 unassorted facts and fables, principally the latter. From 

 the time of Pliny to the commencement of the sixteenth 

 century, natural history may be said to have been almost 

 at a standstill, and assuredly never even approached the 

 high-water mark left by the researches of Aristotle. With 

 the fall of the Roman empire fell also the learning and the 

 culture of the ancients; and the aptly named period of 

 the 'dark ages' records in its annals few names which 

 would find even a humble place in the zoological temple 

 of fame. 



With the dawn of a better time in the beginning of 

 the sixteenth century, natural history did not for long 

 remain unaffected by the general revival of learning. 

 Belon, Rondeletius, Salviani, Conrad Gesner, and Aldro- 

 vandus, all well-known naturalists, are names of this period, 

 which bear testimony to a renewed interest in the world 

 of nature. It was not, however, till the early part of the 

 seventeenth century that natural history showed signs of 



