78 
MEMOIR OF PLINY. 
truth which has served them for a basis, by recalling 
to mind that these are extracts from the works of 
travellers, and by supposing that ignorance and the 
love of the marvellous, on the part of the ancient 
travellers, have led them into these exaggerations, 
and have dictated to them these vague and superfi- 
cial descriptions. It has been alleged as another de- 
fect in Pliny, that he does not always give the true 
sense of the author he translates or copies from, es- 
pecially wlien designating several species of animals. 
Although we certainly possess but limited means of 
judging with respect to errors of this kind, yet it has 
been found that, on many occasions, he has substi- 
tuted for the Greek word, which in Aristotle denotes 
one kind of animal, a Latin word which belongs to 
one entirely different. It is true, indeed, that one 
of the greatest difficulties experienced by the ancient 
naturalists was that of fixing a nomenclature, and 
this want shews itself in Pliny more perhaps than in 
any other. The descriptions, or rather imperfect 
delineations which he gives, are almost always insuf- 
ficient for recognising the several species, where tra- 
dition has failed to preserve the particular name ; 
and there is even a large number whose names alone 
are given without any characteristic mark being ap- 
pended, or any means of distinguishing them from 
one another. If it were possible still to doubt re- 
specting the advantages enjoyed hy the modern over 
the ancient methods, these doubts would be com- 
pletely dispelled by discovering that what the classi- 
