Sune 12, 1873) 
(pues) exclusive of bats. 
- Coorpaxodepyua). 
~ . , TOR ee 
known under the Empire than they have been until very 
recent times. Pliny mentions the occurrence of the Plati- 
nista in the Ganges, but no notice of the Hyrax, a form 
so familiar to the Hebrews, is to be found in Greek or 
Roman authors. 
The next sections are occupied by a tolerably full 
account of the knowledge of anatomy and physiology 
possessed by Aristotle, and by his successors, Herophilus 
and Erasistratus, and of the attempts made towards a 
classification of the animal kingdom. The groups recog- 
nised by the first, and perhaps the greatest, of naturalists, 
are surprisingly near to what are now accepted. 1, 
Viviparous quadrupeds, clothed with hair ((wordxa 
terpavoda)—Mammalia, exclusive of Cetacea, 2. Birds 
3. Oviparous quadru- 
peds, inclusive of snakes and frogs. 4. Cetacea (kyjry), 
with teats and milk (Hist. An., iii, 99). 5. Fishes 
(iy@ves). Those with (red) blood are distinguished 
from the remaining “blocdless” classes. 6, The Cepha- 
lopodous mollusks (waddxa). 7. The testaceous mol- 
lusks, including ascidians, cirripedia and echinide 
8. Malacostraca—Crustacea. 9. In- 
secta (évroua) including all air-breathing Arthropoda. 
Lastly, Starfishes, Sponges, and some other groups, are 
characterised as partaking of the nature of plants 
(Zoopbyta). 
On the whole, Aristotle’s zoology is less imperfect than 
his anatomy. In spite of Prof. Carus’s opinion, the well- 
known passage (Hist. An. i. 39) clearly states what is re- 
peated in two other passages, that the back of the skull 
is empty, and his views of the position and functions of 
the heart, lungs, and nerves are scarcely more scientitic 
than Plato’s notions of hepatic triangles. Indeed it is 
difficult to believe that Aristotle can ever have com- 
pletely dissected a single mammal. The digestive and 
reproductive systems he understood much better. But 
beside his wonderful industry in coilecting facts, the 
acuteness and power of generalisation displayed by 
Aristotle in other branches of science are not wanting in 
natural history, Thus he remarks that insects with horny 
wings have no sting. “I have never seen an animal wita 
solid hoofs and two horns.” When horns are present 
there are no canine teeth. Quadrupeds which bring torth 
their young alive are clothed with hair, those which lay 
eggs, with scales. Insects with four wings have the 
sting behind, those with two, in front. Nor is it the least 
_ proof of Aristotle’s greatness that he gave an impetus to 
P g gave p 
biological science which produced the Alexandrian school 
of anatomy, and only ended at the beginning of the third 
century of our era with the death of Galen. 
The contributions of Roman authors to zoology, such as 
those buried in the huge mass of crude and chiefly worth- 
less material which Pliny called natural history, only 
mark the decay of the science. During the subsequent 
dark ages (the darkness of which is probably for the most 
part subjective) the most remarkable work on zoology is 
the famous “ Physiologus,” also called the “ Bestiarius 
Theobaldi,” of uncertain authorship and date, but known 
over the whole of Christendom from the eighth to the 
_ thirteenth century by translations into Syriac, Armenian, 
_ Arabic, Ethiopic, German, English, Icelandic, and French, 
_ The Greek text is probably the original, from which the 
_ Latin was taken. This long-forgotten book, like Pliny’s, 
NATURE 119 
includes accounts of plants, stones, and other natural 
objects, and describes among more common-place ani- 
mals, mermaids, unicorns, and onocentaurs. There are 
mentioned, of quadrupeds, the antelope (perhaps the 
Urus), beaver, elephant, hyzena, monkey, and lion, beside 
common European species; thirteen species of birds, 
including the ostrich ; of reptiles, several kinds of lizards, 
and serpents, but only one invertebrate animal, the ant. 
The original plan appears to have included only the 
animals mentioned in the Bible, and the chief object of 
the book is to draw moral lessons from the habits of the 
creatures described. The ‘‘ Physiologus,” while of great 
historical interest, is, of course, devoid of even relative 
scientific value. 
Passing over the Arabian naturalists, who added little 
original, we come to the three writers who represent 
the science of the Middle Ages when the writings of 
Aristotle became generally known and the systems of 
scholastic philosophy were founded—Thomas of Can- 
timpré, Albertus Magnus, bishop of Ratisbon, and 
Vincent of Beauvais. They were all Dominicans, and 
all belong to the thirteenth century, that remarkable era 
of revolution in philosophy, politics, and art. At this 
time knowledge of foreign animals was greatly increased 
by the travels of Marco Polo (1275-1292), who described 
the wild horses, musk deer, and yaks of Tartary, the 
camels and asses of Persia, and the rhinoceroses, 
elephants and tigers of India, 
Museums only began to be formed in the sixteenth 
century when the discovery of America brought to light 
so many new animals and plants; but for a long time they 
were what museums still too often are, mere lumber rooms 
of “ Dinge gantz seltzam und fremdi,” as Duke Albert of 
Prussia wrote in 1559. All the earliest anatomical prepa- 
rations, including the celebrated dissections of Harvey 
still preserved in the College of Physicians, are dry. 
The Lucidarius, a medley of stories; about animals, 
which represents in the Renaissance what the Physio- 
logus does in the Middle Ages, appeared in 1479, and like 
the latter was translated into all the European languages. 
The earliest attempt at a System of Zoology was by 
} Wotton in his Differentiis Animalium, published at 
London in 1550. It is little more than a reproduction of 
the doctrine of Aristotle. Conrad Gesner’s Historia 
Animalium appeared in 1551. Like Wotton, he was a 
physician, and practised in Switzerland and South Ger- 
many. His work is chiefly remarkable for its illustra- 
tions, one of which, the figure of the Rhinoceros, 
was drawn by Albert Diirer. Passing over the 
names of Aldrovandi (1522-1603), Johnston (1603-1675), 
and Sperling (1603-1661), the next important work on 
zoology was Bockart’s Hierozoicon, published in 1663. 
This work of the learned Norman Huguenot has been a 
quarry which succeeding biblical commentators have con- 
tinually used, but its value is almost entirely literary : 
indeed it was written rather as a contribution to hermen- 
eutics than to natural science. The figures in a work of 
Clusius, “ Exotica,” which belongs to the early part of 
the seventeenth century, show by those of the sloth, the 
manatee, the armadillo, humming-bird, cassowary, dodo, 
penguin, and molucca crab, how much the discoveries 
made in America, Madagascar, and New Holland, were 
increasing the list of known animals. 
