INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Xlll 



minished, could we with certainty know the species 

 in every case intended by the sacred historian. 



About a thousand years after this classification, 

 (if we may be allowed so to term it,) flourished the 

 Greek philosopher Aristotle, a man who, for the 

 versatility of his genius, the extent of his researches, 

 the soundness of his judgment, and the grandeur 

 of his ideas, stands, perhaps, without a rival, the 

 object of our wonder, admiration, and reverence. 

 He was the first writer who treated expressly of 

 Zoology, whose writings have descended -to our 

 times. He arranged all animals in two great di- 

 visions : I. such as have blood ; and II. such as 

 are without blood. The former he subdivided into 

 those that produce living young, viz., Man, Quadru- 

 peds, and Cetacea ; and those that produce eggs, 

 viz., Birds, Fishes, and Reptiles. The bloodless 

 division comprised, Insects, which he distinguished 

 as possessed or deprived of wings, and the Soft-bodied 

 animals, corresponding generally to the Worms of 

 the modern system of Linnaeus. Such is a brief 

 outline of the Zoological system of Aristotle. 



For about two thousand years afterwards, the science 

 of Zoology appears to have been consigned to almost 

 total oblivion, or at least in the writings of the few 

 isolated individuals who professed to treat of it, to 

 have degenerated into a few common-place facts, 

 overwhelmed with heaps of absurdities and childish 

 fables. In the seventeenth century, however, the 

 attention of mankind began to awake once more to 

 the study of Natural science, and many illustrious 



