108 CONRAD GESNER. 



Beasts and Serpents, collected out of the Writings of 

 Conradus Gesner. Down to the end of the seven- 

 teenth century his compilations were held in the 

 highest estimation in every department of zoology : 

 they are now considered as objects of curiosity rather 

 than stores of useful know^ledge. — The three next of 

 whom mention is to be made were chiefly eminent 

 as ichthyologists. 



PIERRE BELON. 

 The three great authors, it has been remarked, who 

 really laid the foundation of modern ichthyology, 

 appeared in the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 and, what is remarkable, almost at the same time : 

 Belon, in 1553; Rondelet, in 1554 and 1555 ; Sal- 

 viani, from 1554 to 1558. Unlike the compilers 

 who, after Aristotle and Theophrastus, swell our 

 list of writers, they saw and examined for them- 

 selves the fishes of which they speak, and had draw- 

 ings of them taken under their immediate inspection 

 with considerable accuracy. Too faithful, however, 

 to the spirit of their time, they took more pains to 

 find out the names which these fishes bore among the 

 ancients, and in selecting fragments for their history, 

 than in describing them in a distinct manner ; so that, 

 were it not for the figures, it would in many instances 

 be alm-ost impossible to determine their species.""' 



Scarcely any of the older naturalists, however, 

 confined their attention to one department of their 

 favourite science. Belon was a physician, a zoolo- 

 gist, and a botanist. He was born at Souletiere, in 

 the parish of Oise, in Le Maine, about the year 



* Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Poissons. 



