Old Sutural History Books, 
His work was quoted with approval by Conrad Gesner 
[1516-1565], the celebrated Swiss physician and naturalist, 
who wrote a series of natural history works that appeared at No. 27. 
Zurich between 1551 and 1556. Gesner’s Zoology was mainly 
a compilation ; but in Botany he introduced the first clear con¬ 
ception of genera, and proposed, in letters published after his 
death, the earliest methodical system of classification based on 
the structure of the flower and the seed. 
Gesner appears to have led the way in forming a proper 
Zoological Cabinet, and in laying out a Botanic garden. 
WITH the advance of geographical exploration, works on the 
Natural History of regions beyond Europe and the Near East 
began to appear early in the sixteenth century. 
Of these Northern Africa was naturally the first to receive 
attention, and Leo AFRICANUS3 whose real name was Hasan 
Ibn Muhammad, but who afterwards assumed the name of 
Giovanni Leone [ - c. 1526], wrote in Arabic a work sub¬ 
sequently published in Latin at Antwerp in 1556, as De totius 
Africce descriptione libri 9. 
The West Indies and North America were the next to 
receive attention. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes 
[ c.1478 - C.1560] wrote an Historia general y natural de las 
Indtas Occidentalesy of which the first twenty books were printed 
in 1535, though the whole fifty were not completed till 1783 ; 
while Nicolas Monardes [1493-1588], a Spanish doctor 
of Seville, described in 1569 the Plants and Animals used for' No. 23. 
medicine in the West Indies. 
The Near East as a whole was next treated of by Pierre 
Belon [1517-1564], a French naturalist, in his Observations de No. 22. 
pleusieurs singularitez published at Paris in 1553. 
India and the Far East, a few years later, were the subject 
of treatises, principally on the drugs, by Garcias de Orta, 
who, in 1563, published a Coloquias dos Simples^ e Drogas he cousas 
medi^inais da India^ etc., of which a Latin version was issued 
at Antwerp four years later; and by Christ6bal Acosta 
[ -1580], whose Tractado de las Drogas . , , de las Indias 
Orientales^ con suas Plantas^ etc., appeared in 1578. 
Brazil meantime was visited, when the French Protestants 
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