THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 5 
‘Odysseus’ bow. Locusts are represented fleeing from fire, and 
the chirping tettix or grasshopper is often referred to. 
Hippocrates, B.C. 460, was perhaps the first regular 
writer on natural history. Aristotle, B.C. 356, wrote some 
treatises on the same subject. Most of these are lost, but what 
remain give a high idea of his sagacity- Alexander the Great, 
his pupil, is supposed to have sent him specimens from India. 
Pliny, Strabo, Rehan, Theophrastus, and others in the early 
part of the Christian era wrote largely on the subject, but 
while their works are full of interesting information, they are 
also crowded with errors. They exhibit on the whole great 
ignorance of anatomy and physiology and a habit of accept- 
ing statements on insufficient evidence. Poetry and folk lore 
were mixed with science. But with the rise of the Roman 
Empire the interest in natural history dies away. In the 
‘Aineid there is scarcely a reference to it, though the same 
must be said of the Hebrew record. You will search in vain 
through Dante’s “Divine Comedy’’ for any interest in nature, 
that reflection of the mind of the Middle Ages is indeed a 
barren record. It was only with the return of Greek life and 
thought in the Renaissance that the divine curiosity in the 
life about them awoke again. Perhaps it came to the great 
painters first. A flower as a symbol of some particular saint 
appeared in their pictures, the beauty of the world about 
them asserting itself, then a background of landscape or 
flowing waters or rocks and trees. 
The voyages of discovery, the bringing back of many 
strange plants and fruits were a profound stimulus to enquiry, 
and gradually men learnt how to systematize their knowledge. 
Linnaeus, 1707-1778, was the great organizer of botanic 
knowledge, and prepared the way for men like Charles Dar- 
win, Wallace, and others, though he held hopelessly different 
views to these later investigators. He lent the weight of his 
authority to the doctrine of the constancy of species, which 
he for the first time gave precise expression to. With Charles 
Darwin and ‘The Origin of Species’’ we enter upon the great 
era of modern scientific investigation. 
When we turn to our own country we seem to be met on 
the very threshold of its life by the enquiring face of the 
naturalist. When Captain Cook entered Botany Bay Charles 
Darwin was not born. Next to Captain Cook the most in- 
teresting of that intrepid band of navigators is Sir Joseph 
Banks; he is, of course, a familiar figure, familiar to us and 
familiar to the world of scientists and explorers, one, indeed, 
of the most fascinating personalities in the history of that 
wonderful century of daring and exploration. Dignified, with 
great ability and high connections, wealthy and generous, his 
whole life given to the cause he loved, he visited us for a brief 
