232 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



by professed physicians," and we must not forget 

 that Elizabethan botany was more advanced 

 than Elizabethan zoology. 



Something, however, was learned from hus- 

 bandry and field sports. " Let the student/' 

 says Vives, " have recourse, for instance, to 

 gardeners, husbandmen, shepherds, and hunters/' 

 and in " De rebus rusticis " he says, " Let the boy 

 read Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladius." " Vi- 

 truvius is important for naming with the greatest 

 purity and accuracy most objects of the country/' 

 Virgil with his marvellous account of apiculture 

 and other agricultural pursuits was much read 

 during this period. 



The gentlefolk also in Queen Elizabeth's time 

 were much interested in the study of heraldry, 

 for indeed it was a very gentlemanly pursuit. 

 Gerard Legh's " Accedens of Armory " (1562), 

 and John Guillim's " A Display of Heraldry " 

 (1610), included descriptions of creatures which 

 enabled the owners of animal crests and supporters 

 to appreciate the nature of what they bore and 

 of what supported them. 



In Shakespeare's time, although a knowledge 

 of physiology and human anatomy was beginning 

 to emerge, such objects as comparative anatomy, 



