viii Introduftion. 



find in reading them a little of the fame pleafure 

 which I have experienced while fearching for the 

 facts they contain among the lefs frequently ex- 

 plored by-paths of claflical literature. They are, at 

 all events, a contribution to a fafcinating ftudy 

 fpeculations rendered venerable by their antiquity, 

 rather than by the credit due to the writers who 

 are here laid under contribution. I would fain 

 fhelter, therefore, under Lord Bacon's mantle : 

 "Summae pufillanimitatis eft auctoribus infinita 

 tribuere, auctori autem auctorum, atque adeo 

 omnis auctoritatis, tempori, jus fuum denegare. 

 Rede enim veritas temporis filia dicitur non 

 auctoritatis." 1 



He who has been accuftomed to teft modern 

 biological problems by means of the inductive 

 philofophy, is ftruck with amazement when he 

 firft turns to the natural hiftory of the ancients. 

 There are many regular writers of it ; many 

 fcattered allufions to and accounts of animal life 

 in the poets. But all the natural hiftory of the 

 ancients labours under the fame faults, faults 

 infeparable, however, from the infancy of the 

 race an inability to difcriminate with any accu- 

 racy, great ignorance of anatomy and phyfiology, 

 and a habit of accepting ftatements on infufficient 

 evidence. The writers of ancient natural hiftory 

 were, to ufe a modern phrafe of pregnant meaning, 

 wholly uncritical. Poetry and folk-lore were 

 confuted with exact fcience. Like children, they 

 were quick to grafp at marvels, to embrace a 



1 "Nov. Organum," i. 84.. 



