CHAPTER XIII 

 HISTORICAL ZOOLOGY 



No one knows when man began to study animal life. The 

 pursuit of certain forms for food, the domestication of others, 

 and the practice of animal sacrifice doubtless furnished some crude 

 and scattered notions of anatomy, physiology, and ecology, even 

 in remote antiquity. The first scientific treatises that had an 

 influence upon modern zoological ideas were not written until 

 about three hundred and fifty years before Christ. At this time 

 Aristotle's works appeared, and so careful were the observations 

 of this remarkable man that they were considered authoritative 

 for twenty centuries. 



It is convenient to divide zoological history into five periods: 

 (i) the Greek Period, (2) the Roman Period, (3) the Period of the 

 Middle Ages, (4) the Encyclopedic Period, and (5) the Modern 

 Period. 



i. THE GREEK PERIOD 



Aristotle (384-322 B.C., Fig. 150) was the foremost pupil of 

 Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great. He was early left 

 an orphan with a considerable fortune, and devoted his life to 

 study in a variety of fields. He published three hundred works 

 on philosophy, psychology, rhetoric, and other subjects, but his 

 most important contributions were to natural history, of which 

 science he is justly called the " father." He knew over five 

 hundred species of vertebrates and many invertebrates, and at- 

 tempted to classify them. His greatest works were on the natural 

 h ; story of animals, the parts of animals, and the development of 



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