ZOOLOGY IN TIME OF SHAKESPEARE 237 



this book he printed the " Pater Noster " in no 

 fewer than twenty-three tongues. 



Amongst many other works of great importance 

 his stupendous " Historia Animalium " is per- 

 haps the most remarkable. In the decade be- 

 ginning 1540 Gesner began to collect material 

 for his great Natural History. He read between 

 two and three hundred volumes, he travelled 

 extensively in Europe, interviewing and learning 

 from agriculturists, shepherds and hunters as 

 well as " Gelehrten." Everywhere he was helped 

 by the eager efforts of his fellow workers in natural 

 history. 



Just before Shakespeare's death in the year 

 1607, Edward Topsell, a member of Christ's 

 College and in the matter of livings somewhat 

 of a pluralist, published under the title " The 

 Historie of Foure-Footed beastes " an abstract 

 of Gesner, and in the next year followed it up 

 with " The Historie of Serpents," both illustrated 

 with charmingly quaint, if inaccurate, wood- 

 cuts. Topsell had, what the modern zoologist 

 must have (but the possession in his time was 

 less common), a sound knowledge of German, 

 and to this knowledge his books owe so much. 

 These books give us a fair idea of what the 



