( 233 ) 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



NOTICE RESPECTING THE JOURNALS OF THE LATE DR. SIBTHORP. 



A residence in parts of Greece and Asia Minor during a period 

 of three or four years would enable a learned and intelligent naturalist 

 to furnish some valuable illustrations of various passages in the works 

 of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, iElian, and Pliny. The 

 names of many birds, as well as fishes, which occur in the writings 

 of the Greeks are difficult to be interpreted. Of the twenty-four 

 persons who form the chorus in the comedy of the Aves, says 

 Mr. Gray, and enter under the form of so many birds, there are ten, 

 of which we can give no explanation in English. 



We have already alluded to the great collection of materials for a 

 Fauna and Flora Graeca procured by Dr. Sibthorp and Mr. Hawkins 

 during their travels in the Levant. In the extracts from Dr. S.'s 

 journals, the reader will find many remarks on the medicinal and 

 ceconomical uses of the Greek plants ; the names also given to them 

 by the modern inhabitants are annexed ; and much new information 

 is added concerning the birds, the animals of Greece, and the 

 fishes of the Archipelago. The botany of the ancients, Beckmann 

 observes, would be more easily explained if the names used by the 

 modern Greeks were known ; a similar remark may be applied to the 

 ornithology and ichthyology of Greece*, and to the animals of that 

 country. Dr. Sibthorp has noted down many of the modern appella- 

 tions, but the reader will find in some instances the names of the 

 present day very different from the ancient terms. Tv(p\c7rovTixog has 



* The accentuation and mode of writing the Romaic names of the plants and animals 

 of Greece in Dr. S.'s journals are not always correct. The editor has printed them as 

 accurately as he could : but sometimes words occur, concerning which further information 

 is wanting. 



H H 



