ZOOLOGY IN TIME OF SHAKESPEARE 233 



morphology, and embryology were non-existent. 

 In dealing with the animal kingdom, the first 

 need of the earlier writers on zoology was to make 

 some sort of classification, and even in the later 

 Tudor times such attempts at classification rested 

 almost wholly on external characteristics. These 

 arid catalogues of animals were usually lightened 

 by the addition of notes on their habits often 

 of the quaintest and most bizarre description 

 and by short accounts of such medical properties 

 as the fantastic pharmacy of the sixteenth century 

 attributed to various beasts. 



William Turner in 1544 published his " Avium 

 Praecipuarum quarum apud Plinium et Aristo- 

 telem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia," 

 dedicated to Edward Prince of Wales after- 

 wards Edward VI. Turner had been educated 

 at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he knew 

 Latimer and learned Greek from Ridley. He 

 travelled much abroad and became an M.D. of 

 Ferrara and subsequently of Oxford. Later in 

 life he was ordained, and in 1550 he was appointed 

 Dean of Wells, a post he was compelled to quit on 

 the accession of Queen Mary. His business in 

 life was theological controversy and he wrote 

 many polemical works, but his pleasure was in 



