CHaptTer VIII. 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY (lst Part). 
The Sixteenth Century (Ist part): Solan Geese of Canada. John Major. 
Hector Boece. The name Brissel. 
The Boke of Phyllyp Sparrowe, compiled by Master 
[John] Skelton (1508).—The awakening of western Europe 
at the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the 
sixteenth, led to an increasing search for knowledge, obtained 
by means of personal observation and actual experiment. 
Hitherto the attitude of learned men towards animals and 
plants had not had much relation to real knowledge, but 
improvement slowly began to manifest itself. The position 
of those who claimed to be scientific teachers was still rather 
vague, such men were rather to be called explainers. Theirs 
was what a learned writer has termed an elaborate doctrine 
of symbolism which comprised all nature. This is demon- 
strated in more ways than one; it is shown not only 
by the importance attached to the medical properties of 
herbs, but also by the anatomical schools which began to be 
founded, in which the study of animals was recommended 
not to be neglected. Nevertheless, zoology, as we now under- 
stand the word, moved at a very slow pace, and it certainly 
is remarkable how little there is about birds in the literature 
of any country before the middle of the sixteenth century. 
Birds were regarded as things which could or could not, be 
eaten, and no further interest was taken in them; they did 
not possess the virtue which was supposed to lie in herbs, 
and there were very few medical secrets which physicians 
could hope to extract from them. ‘“‘The Boke of Phyllyp 
Sparrowe,” written by a native of Norfolk, is some exception 
to this rule, for the poem brings in the names of sixty-nine 
birds. They are all recognisable, except the “ Rouse” and 
the “ Kowgh,” which latter may be ‘“ Chough.” Route or 
