ENCYCLOPEDIC NATUEALISTS OF RENAISSANCE 49 



beyond this the animals are taken in alphabetical 

 order, though nearly allied forms are often grouped 

 about a type. There is no regular subordination of 

 groups, no precise nomenclature, no anatomical intro- 

 ductions; the figures are largely borrowed. It gives 

 some notion of the state of zoological knowledge in 

 the second half of the sixteenth century that Gesner 

 should have grouped the hippopotamus, whales, fishes, 

 moUusca, &c. as aquatic animals, that the bat should be 

 described among the birds, and that the scorpion should 

 be represented as possessing elytra. The History was 

 republished, abridged, and translated, so that it must 

 have been highly esteemed. 



Not only Gesner but almost all the naturalists of the 

 sixteenth century put the bat among the birds and the 

 whales (sometimes the seals and the hippopotamus 

 also) among the fishes, or at least in a group of aquatic 

 animals, though the more knowing showed that they were 

 aware of the differences which rendered such associa- 

 tions scientifically indefensible. It is surprising that 

 they hardly ever ventured to throw over the mediaeval 

 grouping and go back to Aristotle, whose name com- 

 manded so much respect. Wotton and Aldrovandi did 

 so in the case of the bats,^ but not even Ray dared to 

 separate the whales from the fishes. What is perhaps 

 the last survival of such a grouping is to be found in 

 Artedi's Ichihyologia (1738), which was edited by 

 Linnaeus. 



Less known to fame was Edward Wotton (1492-1555), 

 a London physician, who published a Latin treatise De 

 differentiis animalium (fol. Paris, 1552) nearly at the 

 same time with the first part of Gesner's History. 



^ Wotton treated the bats as mammals, Aldrovandi as intermediate between 

 mammals and birds ; Aristotle seems to have hesitated between the two views. 



D 



