160 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



conformably to the humour of his time, as the 

 " archetype " of all animals. The superficial resem- 

 blance of the Viper and the Eel entraps him into 

 arranging their distinguishing features in parallel 

 columns, but he is evidently in doubt himself, and the 

 reader is left to draw whatever conclusions he can from 

 this irregular alliance. He pursues in some detail the 

 anatomy of most orders of mammals ; of birds, fishes and 

 cephalopods ; and there are in addition observations on 

 tortoises, lizards and snakes ; frogs and toads ; insects and 

 arachnids; crayfish, slugs and snails; and earthworms. 

 A section on anatomical methods concludes the treatise. 

 As examples of the matter and scope of his work, he 

 understood the structure and physiology of the complex 

 stomach of Ruminants, and he describes the well- 

 developed sclerotic of separate bony plates in the birds of 

 prey. 



VII. 



The constitution of the French Academy of Science 

 in 1666 established a school of morphology to which the 

 modern development of comparative anatomy may be 

 directly traced. The Academy divided its forces into 

 Mathematicians, who met on Wednesdays, and Physicists, 

 as Biologists were then called, who met on Saturdays. 

 As we gather from contemporary engravings, and from 

 the reports of their proceedings, the Academy in no 

 sense corresponded to the scientific society of to-day, but 

 was rather a laboratory for the practical examination and 

 discussion of natural phenomena. We note with satis- 

 faction, but with little surprise, that in the subsequent 

 decline of the Academy up to its reconstitution in 1699, 

 the biological section alone retained its vitality, and the 

 earnest and virile band of comparative anatomists were 



