In the following pages we propose to consider at some little length the state of zoological knowledge in the Middle Ages, and in so doing we shall, we doubt not, discover much of interest. While we shall undoubtedly find from time to time strange errors that greater opportunity of observation has in these latter days rectified, and encounter many things that may provoke a smile, we must in the forefront of our remarks very definitely assert that much of the literary work of our ancestors in this branch of study is worthy of high commendation, and that anything approaching scorn or sneer is entirely out of place. Strange, indeed, would it be if the modern man of science, with all the advantages of travel now so freely available, with the microscope, with the great facilities for the interchange of ideas or of specimens with kindred spirits, had not made a marked advance, but we can never look upon the works of the greater writers of the mediæval period without the utmost respect. The common people of that day were eagerly searching after knowledge and the huge folios and encyclopædias that were freely published are a monument of the diligence and painstaking zeal, of the courage and enthusiasm of their teachers. That they made mistakes goes without saying, but to the full extent of their light they were honest seekers after truth.

While the statements of these early writers have been too frequently dismissed as fabulous and unreliable, it is only just to them to recall the fact that some of the details that have come into reproach have after all been found authentic. Sir Emerson Tennant in his work on Ceylon very justly observes that “we ought not to be too hasty in casting ridicule upon the narratives of ancient travellers. In a geographical point of view they possess great value, and if sometimes they contain statements which appear marvellous, the mystery is often explained away by a more minute and careful enquiry.” The Troglodytes mentioned by Pliny, Aristotle and Herodotus yet exist in the Bosjesmen of to-day and still preserve many of the peculiarities and customs that those early writers described. Du Chaillu rediscovered the gorillas that Hanno, the ancient Carthaginian, endeavoured to capture, and Stanley encountered the pigmy tribes that are mentioned by travellers of a thousand years before. We accept in full faith the statements of such men as Captain Cook and Dr. Livingstone, and we may reasonably conclude that there have been many other and earlier travellers as scrupulously truthful. There have, undoubtedly, been travellers who have too credulously accepted mere hearsay in place of actual observation, and these, whether ancient, mediæval, or modern, are responsible for the stigma that has at times attached to “Travellers’ tales”: all that we are at present careful to assert is that the great bulk of travellers and authors in the Middle Ages—as in all other ages—were neither the fools nor the knaves that the malicious or the hypercritical would sometimes fain represent them.

We speedily find, on opening any of the books on natural history that were issued in the Middle Ages, that such ancient writers as Pliny, Aristotle, or Herodotus, and other venerable authorities are held in great reverence, and that the prefatory “as Pliny saith” gives at once dignity and authenticity to any statement advanced. Mediæval zoology is no more independent of the gatherings of previous centuries than the dogmas of nineteenth century Christianity are independent of the writings of Isaiah.

In comparing ancient or mediæval zoology with modern, we are conscious of a difference of aim and treatment. The study of the present day is largely devoted to the life-history of the creatures themselves, their structure, and so forth; while in former times the writer strove ordinarily after an entirely different aim, thinking much less of these external facts, but dwelling upon the value of the animal to mankind in one of two directions. While we occasionally in books of travels have the more modern and descriptive treatment, the main bulk of the writings on animals in mediæval days had ordinarily one of two objects: the healing of the body, or the saving of the soul. Hence the medical writers sought anxiously for “the vertues” that indicated their value to suffering humanity, and the theologians sought with equal zeal to implant a moral, and if the facts in this latter case did not lend themselves very happily to this treatment so much the worse for the facts.

As an illustration of this moral-pointing treatment we find in one of these old writers that “polypus is a fish with many feet, and a rounde head neare unto them: it is a great enemy to the lobster, and they can often change their colour, and by that project devoure other fishes. Their use and custom is to be lurking closely by the sides and roots of rocks, changing themselves into the colour of the same thing unto which they cleave: insomuch that they seem as a part of the rock; whither when the foolish fish swim they fall into danger, for whilst they dread nothing these polypodes suddenly prey upon them and devoure them. And indeede this is the constancie and unfeared treacherie which is often found in many men, who will be anything for their own ends. And nothing without them: sparing none for their own purposes, nor loving any but to effect them. Their heads, indeed, may well be neare their feet; for they prize the trash we trample on farre above the joyes of heaven; else they would never work their fond purposes by deceitfull meanes and damage others to help themselves.” Another illustration of the same kind states that “although the mole be blinde all her lifetime, yet she beginneth to open her eyes in dying: whiche is a prettie embleme. This serveth to decypher the state of a worldly man, who neither seeth heaven nor thinketh of hell in his lifetime, untill he be dying: and then beginning to feel that which before he either not believed or not regarded, he looketh up and seeth. For even against his will he is then compelled to open his eyes and acknowledge his sinnes, although before he could not see them.” We have taken these two passages from the “Speculum Mundi, or a Glasse representing the Face of the World, whereunto is added a Discourse of the Creation, together with a Consideration of such things as are pertinent to each dayes Worke.” It was written by one John Swan, and the copy before us as we write bears date 1635.⁠[1] It is a good typical example of the theological treatment of natural history that was long so much in vogue. Many parables and fables in like manner deal with animals as so much raw material to be shaped to such moral end as the narrator or writer pleases.

The idea that it was permissible to sacrifice a lower truth to gain a higher one, and to make whatever modification was needed to turn a good moral into one still better was very frankly held, as the goodness of the intention was considered ample justification for any aberration from the actual facts. Thus Hippeau writes: “N’oublions pas que les pères de l’Eglise se préoccupèrent toujours beaucoup plus de la pureté des doctrines qu’ils avaient à développer, que de l’exactitude scientifique des notions sur lesquelles ils les appuyaient. L’objet important pour nous, dit Saint Augustin, àpropos de l’aigle, qui disait on brise contre la pierre l’éxtrémité de son bec devenue trop long, est de considérer la signification d’un fait et non d’en discuter l’authenticité.” This simple principle runs through the whole series of “Bestiaries” published under ecclesiastical influence, and, while it gives them a special interest of their own, deprives them of any scientific value.

The zoological lore of the mediæval writers was based, to some degree, upon actual observation, but was still more often largely borrowed from earlier writers, and was greatly influenced by various external influences, such as astrology. It was, moreover, a very credulous age, and men in all good faith wrote or read statements of wild improbability or of absolute impossibility; statements, too, that could so readily be brought to the test of experiment that one would have thought it impossible to gain a week’s credence for them, and yet which are gravely transferred from one book to another for centuries. Numerous examples of such statements will necessarily crop up throughout our pages, but we may by way of immediate illustration quote a couple. These are both taken from a work entitled “Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus de Mirabilibus Naturæ Arcanis,” which was once very popular, was translated into French and English, and held in high repute. We merely quote these instances as we find them in the first book that comes to our hand; it would be easy from a score of other books to give a hundred of like character. The first of these would be invaluable to athletes if only it would bear the test of experience. “Gather some of the herb called motherwort, when the sun is entering the first degree of the sign of Capricorn: let it dry a little in the shade, and make some garters of the skin of a young hare; that is to say, having cut the skin of the hare into strips two inches wide, double them, sew the before-mentioned herb between, and wear them on your legs. No horse can long keep up with a man on foot who is furnished with those garters.” There is evidently here an idea that the speed of the hare can be somehow bestowed on the man who wears its skin, and this notion of transfer crops up repeatedly in these old recipes. Our next extract points to a time of some little peril, and gives welcome means of avoiding the evils that might befall the traveller. “Gather, on the morrow of All Saints, a strong branch of willow, of which you will make a staff, fashioned to your liking. Hollow it out, by removing the pith from within, after having furnished the lower end with an iron ferrule. Put into the bottom of the staff the two eyes of a young wolf, the tongue and heart of a dog, three green lizards, and the hearts of two young swallows. These must all be dried in the sun between two papers, having been first sprinkled with finely ground saltpetre. Besides all these, put into the staff seven leaves of vervain, gathered on the eve of St. John the Baptist, with a stone of divers colours, which you will find in the nest of the lapwing, and stop the end of the staff with a panel of box, or of any other material you please, and be assured that this staff will preserve you from the perils which befall the traveller, either from robbers, wild beasts, mad dogs, or venomous animals. It will also procure you the goodwill of those with whom you lodge.” The dread of mad dogs, of scorpions and other venomous creatures seems to have been extreme in the Middle Ages, every medical book and herbal abounding in preservatives from, and antidotes for, such perils to the traveller. It will be noted in these and such like receipts that no little amount of trouble was necessarily entailed in providing the necessary ingredients, and in providing them at the special season that increased their efficacy. The necessary items in the foregoing receipt, a calendar to tell when the Saints’ days come round, a willow stick, a wolf, two swallows, and a dog to be slain, lizards to be captured, paper, saltpetre, iron ferrule and plug of box to be procured, vervain leaves to be gathered, and lapwing’s nest to be found and ransacked, are really few in number and easy of attainment compared to those required in many preparations. In the famous vermifuge and antidote to all animal poisons that was known as “Venice treacle,” there were seventy-three ingredients. This was retained in the London Pharmacopeia up to little more than a century ago. The fourteenth-century equivalent of the well-known legend of the nineteenth-century chemist, “prescriptions carefully prepared,” must have carried with it a tremendous responsibility in mediæval days.

Another potent influence with the older writers was the delight in what is abnormal and wonderful, and here again a ready credulity found ample material. The love of the marvellous is deeply engraved in human nature. We may see abundant proof of this in such classic myths as the Sirens, in the monstrous forms carved or depicted in the temples of Egypt or Mexico, in the popularity of such books as the Arabian Nights’ Tales, or the adventures of Gulliver or Munchausen down to the fearful joy of the youngsters in the nursery in the sanguinary giant whose food was the blood of Englishmen.

The fell harpies, the monstrous roc, the death-dealing basilisk, the phœnix, the chimæra, the monstrous kraken, the deadly cockatrice, the fire-drake, dragon, half-man half-fish, the vulture-headed Nisroch, the treacherous Lorelei, sweet Queen Mab of Fairyland, fiery dragons, ghastly wehr-wolves, mermaids, centaurs, together with the great sea-serpent, the toad embedded for countless centuries in the rock, and other wonders that still turn up from time to time during the dull season in the newspapers, are but a few examples that at once occur to one’s thoughts. Ovid and Pliny in their day went to very considerable lengths to satisfy this love of the marvellous; in the Middle Ages writers not a few discoursed of dog-headed men, of pigmies, of “the anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,” while no country fair in this present year of grace would be considered by its patrons at all up to date unless it included a giant and a dwarf, together with a two-headed calf, or some such monstrosity.

The writings of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and other poets abound in allusions to the folk-lore of the time. Thus in the lines—

we have an interesting reference to the old belief that all things, terrestrial or celestial, were created for the service of man and were profitable in some way or other to him. Much of the early medical treatment was a strange mixture of astrological, zoological and botanical lore. Thus Chaucer tells us of his Doctour of Phisik that—

Not only did he put his trust in “drugges and letuaries,” but—

We have seen that it was a necessary condition in the preparation of the receipt that we have given that the sun should be in a particular position in the heavens prior to gathering one of the ingredients, and the saturnine, jovial, martial, or mercurial qualities of various substances employed in the healing art owed their potency to a due regard to the starry influences.

In a quaint old book “Imprinted in London at Flete Streate, nyghe unto Saint Dunstones Churche,” by one Thomas Marshe, and published by him in the year 1565, we have “goodlye Doctrine and Instruction necessarye to be marked and folowed of all true chirurgeons, gathered and diligently set forth by John Halle, Chyrurgeon,” under the title of “An Historicall Expostulation against the Beastlye Abuses, both of Chyrurgerie and Physicke in oure tyme.”⁠[2] He sums up the requirements of the “chyrurgeon” properly equipped for his work in the following lines—

The acquisition of this varied fund of knowledge shall prove itself enjoyable, helpful, and profitable, for—

One interesting result of searching in these old tomes is that amidst much that the world has now outlived one often finds interesting references that show how unchanging some customs are, and how some of the things that we have regarded as recent discoveries were, after all, well known centuries ago. It is somewhat startling, for instance, to see the great African lakes—the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and others that have only comparatively lately been rediscovered—quite clearly marked in some ancient maps; and the whole course of the Nile, from source to sea, as definitely given as that of Thames or Tiber.

We speak of the “unchanging East,” and adopt the phrase with more or less of thoughtful acquiescence, but it is distinctly interesting in the pages of Jordanus, for example, to find the Parsee funeral customs and the Tower of Silence thus referred to:—“There be pagan folk in this India who worship fire; they bury not their dead, neither do they burn them, but cast them into the midst of a certain roofless tower, and there expose them totally uncovered to the fowls of heaven.” He was present also at Suttee, for he says:—“I have sometimes seen for one dead man who was burnt, five living women take their places on the fire with their dead, and for the love of their husbands and for eternal life burn along with them, with as much joy as if they were going to be wedded.”

This Jordanus was a missionary bishop in India. He was appointed to the bishopric of Columbum by Pope John XXII., by a Bull bearing date April 5th, 1330. There are indications that there was at that time a considerable body of Christians at Columbum, but the locality is now entirely unknown. Many conflicting theories have been held, and each one demolished as hopeless by the holders of the others. His book, entitled “Mirabilia descripta,” was written in Latin. “Like many other old writers,” very justly observes Colonel Henry Yule, who published an English translation of his book from which we quote, “whilst endeavouring to speak only truth of what he had seen, Jordanus retails fables enough from hearsay. What he did see in his travels was so marvellous to him that he was quite ready to accept what was told him of regions more remote from Christendom, when it seemed but in reasonable proportion more marvellous.” Of the truth of this we shall doubtless find illustration in subsequent references to his book.

Maundevile in like manner in his “Voiage and Travaile” gives us another insight into the unchangeable nature of the customs of the East. We recognize at once the sacrifice made to Juggernaut when we read that “at the thronynge of the Ydole all the Contree aboute meten there to gidere: and thei setten this Ydole upon a Chare with gret reverence, wel arranged with Clothes of gold, of riche Clothes of Tartarye and other precyous Clothes: and thei leden him aboute the Cytee with gret solempnytee. And before the Chare gon first in processioun alle the Maydennes of the Contree two and two to gidere, fulle ordynately. Aftre the Maydennes gon the Pilgrymes. And sume of hem falle down undre the Wheles of the Chare and let the Chare gon over hem, so that thei ben dede anon. And sume hav here Armes or here Lymes alle to broken and sume the sydes: and alle this done thei for love of hire God, in gret Dovocioun. And he thinkethe that the more peyne, and the more tribulacioun that thei suffren for love of here God the more ioye thei schulle have in an other World.” We read also of the snake charmers, of the small misshapen feet of the Chinese ladies, the talon-like nails of their lords and masters. He tells us too of the incubation by artificial means, “withouten Henne, Goos or Doke or ony other Foul,” of eggs “at Cayre,” which our readers will readily recognize as Cairo. It will no doubt be remembered by many who may scan these pages, how large a use the French made of pigeons, when, during the siege of Paris in the Franco-German war, they desired to communicate with the outside world, and this is clearly no new thing under the sun, for Maundevile tells us that “in Judæa and other Contrees beyonde thei hav a Custom, whan thei schulle usen Werre, and whan men holden Sege abouten Cytee or Castelle, and thei with innen dur not senden out Messagers with Letters for to aske Sokour thei bynden here Lettres to the Nekke of a Colver⁠[3] and leten the Colver flee, and the Colveren ben so taughte that thei fleen with the Lettres to the verry place that Men wolde sende hem to.”

As we shall from time to time have occasion to refer to Maundevile’s book, we may, on this first mention of it, very advantageously introduce some few details respecting it. The “Voiage and Travaile” of Sir John Maundevile was professedly a book for the guidance of pilgrims and travellers journeying to Jerusalem, but on the same principle that it has been asserted that all roads lead to Rome so all seemed to have centred in the capital of Judæa; hence his book is comprehensive enough to include the “Marvayles of Inde,” and a very full description of China. The book was one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages, and passed through many editions both in England and on the continent,⁠[4] first in manuscript form and afterwards as a printed book. Of no book, with the exception of the Scriptures, can more MSS. be found of the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. Nineteen manuscript copies of it, four being in Latin and nine in French, are in the library of the British Museum, and others at Oxford, Cambridge, and in various other libraries. In one of the copies in the British Museum, a small vellum folio of the fourteenth century, its raison d’être is thus defined—“Here bygynneth the book of John Maundevile, Knyght of Inglelond, that was y-bore in the toun of Seynt Albons, and travelide aboute in the worlde in manye diverse countreis to se mervailes and customes of countreis and diversiteis of folkys and diverse shap of men and of beistis, and all the mervaill that he say he wrot and tellitte in this book.” The book is made up from his personal experiences, supplemented by gossip and hearsay, while at times he appropriated freely from the works of other authors. Much of what he tells of China and India is markedly similar, for instance, to the narrative of Friar Odoric, the narration of whose travels in those lands was given to the world in the year 1331. When Maundevile has an exceptionally improbable story to narrate he evades personal responsibility by prefacing it with the formula, “thei seyn.” He set out on his travels on Michaelmas day in 1322, and was absent from England for thirty-four years, being “ravished with a mightie desire to see the greater part of the world,” and in that lengthened period of absence going far towards the attainment of his ideal.

As regards the mention by various old authors of divers things that we have a way of considering quite recent discoveries we may give as an illustration the coca plant. This has been within the last few years brought to the front and highly commended as a stimulant, from its undoubted power of enabling one to sustain strength and endurance during any exceptional bodily exertion, but on taking down Burton’s “Miracles of Art and Nature” from our bookshelf, we find that over two hundred years ago (our copy is dated 1678) all this was as thoroughly known as it is to-day. After mentioning in his description of Peru, divers curious animals, he goes on to say—“Some as deservedly account the coca for a wonder, the leaves whereof being dried and formed into Lozenges, or little pellets, are exceedingly useful in a Journey: for melting in the mouth, they satisfie both hunger and thirst, and preserve a man in his strength and his Spirits in vigour: and are generally esteemed of such Soveraign use that it is thought no less than 100,000 Baskets full of the leaves of this tree are sold yearly at the Mines of Potosi only, each of which at some other places would yield 12d or 18d apiece.”

Burton’s book, “Miracles of Art and Nature, or a Brief Description of the several varieties of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants, and Fruits of other Countreys, Together with Severall Remarkable Things in the World,” contains much curious and interesting matter, and we shall find occasion to quote from it from time to time in our subsequent pages. The scope and aim of the book may be very well gathered from the following extract from the preface—“Candid Reader, what thou findest herein are Collections out of severall Antient Authors, which (with no small trouble) I have carefully and diligently Collected and Comprised into this small Book at some vacant hours, for the divertisement of such as thyself, who are disposed to read it: For the several Climates of the World, have not only influenced the Inhabitants, but the very Beasts, with Natures different from one another: So hast thou here, not only a Description of the several Shapes and Natures of Variety of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants, and Fruits: but also of the Dispositions and Customs (though some of them Barbarous and Inhuman) of severall People, who Inhabit many pleasing and other parts of the World. I think there is not a Chapter wherein thou wilt not find various and remarkable things worth thy observation: and such (take the Book throughout) that thou canst not have in any one Author, at least Modern, and of this Volume. ’Tis probable they are not so Methodically dispos’d as some hands might have done: Yet for Variety and Pleasure-sake, they are (I hope) pleasingly enough intermixed. And as I find this accepted so I shall proceed. Farewel.” That the disposition is not altogether methodical is speedily evident, as opening the book at random we find chapters following each other on “Norwey, Assiria, Quivira in California, Germany, Nova Zelina.”

The influence of Pliny is of immense weight with the writers of mediæval days, and even when the well-used formula “as Pliny saith,” is not given, anyone who is familiar with his labours will have no difficulty in recognizing the utilization of his material by his successors. Thus Pliny tells us that many wonderful things which he specifies are to be found in Ethiopia, hence Ethiopia has been discovered by many subsequent writers to be a marvellous land, and the wondrous things they detail of it have strange similarity with those of the older writer. This need not in all cases imply plagiarism; if a writer five hundred years ago, in describing the Bay of Naples, introduced a volcano into his description, we do not resent all subsequent writers on the subject also seeing it, but when an ancient writer introduces a rank impossibility, and subsequent writers see that too, we may reasonably assume that they have been borrowing. As an illustration we may mention that we read in the pages of Pliny of single-footed men who possess this solitary feature of so gigantic a size that its owner utilizes it as a sunshade. Hence these people appear from time to time in the pages of divers travellers. Maundevile, for instance, without acknowledgment of the source of his information, which he allows us to think is the result of his personal observation, tells us that “in Ethiope ben many dyverse folk,” and goes on to specify that “in that Contree ben folk that have but on foot: and thei gon so fast that it is marvayle, and the foot is so large that it schademethe all the Body agen the Sonne whanne thei wole lye and reste hem.”

That Pliny was at times imposed upon by his informants is sufficiently obvious from the illustration that we have given, but when all deductions have been made his work was a very wonderful and valuable one, and a monument of painstaking industry, intellectual power and enormous erudition. The great naturalist Cuvier, no mean authority, calls it “one of the most precious monuments that have come down to us from ancient times.” Buffon, no mean authority either, writes: “It is, so to say, a compilation from all that had been written before his time: a record of all that was excellent or useful: but his record has in it features so grand, this compilation contains matter grouped in a manner so novel, that it is preferable to most of the original works that treat upon similar subjects.”

Seeing that it is the fons et origo of so much subsequent work, we may well devote some little space to its consideration, for mediæval natural history is largely Pliny, either frankly acknowledged, boldly appropriated without acknowledgment, or at least the nucleus around which other observations of more or less value are gathered.

Pliny’s book is of the most comprehensive character, and even his table of contents runs into many pages. This table would appear at the time of its issue to have been almost a literary curiosity, as he prefaces it by saying that “as you⁠[5] should be spared as far as possible from all trouble, I have subjoined the contents of the following books, and have used my best endeavours to prevent your being obliged to read them all through. And this, which was done for your benefit, will also serve the same purpose for others, so that anyone may search for what he wishes, and may know where to find it. This has been done before amongst us by Valerius Soranus, in his book which he entitled ‘On Mysteries.’”

The following shortened list gives a notion of the general character of the various sections of this magnum opus. After the first book, which is occupied entirely by the elaborate preface to the Emperor, the author plunges at once into his subject, and devotes the second book to a general treatise on the elements and on the world and the heavenly bodies. The third and fourth books describe the great bays of Europe, while the fifth and sixth deal with Africa and Asia respectively. The seventh book is entirely devoted to man, and the eighth and ninth are on land and aquatic animals. The tenth treats of birds, and the eleventh of insects. The attention of the author and reader is then turned to matters botanical, and the twelfth book dwells upon odoriferous plants. The thirteenth is occupied with the consideration of the various exotic trees then known, while the fourteenth is devoted entirely to the vine, and the fifteenth to fruit trees generally. In the next book, the sixteenth, the author passes to a consideration of the various kinds of forest trees, and in the following, the seventeenth, to the plants raised in nurseries and gardens. The eighteenth book deals with the cultivation of corn and the general pursuits of the husbandman. The treatise then turns to economic and medicinal considerations, section nineteen taking up flax and other commercial plants, and twenty dealing with the herbs cultivated for food or medicine. The twenty-first and twenty-second are somewhat æsthetic, and dwell upon the flowers and plants proper for garlands. The twenty-third and twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth are devoted to the medicines made from cultivated trees, forest trees, and wild plants respectively. The twenty-sixth deals with new diseases and their appropriate treatment by herbs, and the twenty-seventh is a continuation and amplification of the twentieth. The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth are devoted to the medicines derived from animals, and the thirtieth chapter deals with magic and the proper medicines for various parts of the body. The thirty-first and thirty-second sections are given up to the economic uses of various aquatic animals, one being entirely devoted to their medicinal value, and the next to their general commercial adaptability. The remaining chapters deal with the mineral kingdom, the thirty-third chapter being given up wholly to gold and silver, and the thirty-fourth to lead and copper. The thirty-fifth division is given up to pictures and colours and the painters and users thereof. The thirty-sixth chapter is occupied with marbles and various kinds of stone, while the concluding section deals with gems.

It will thus be seen that the work is of the most comprehensive character, and however far the world may since have travelled, and in its revolutions disproved much that when this book was written was held to be undoubted, the book nevertheless remains a noble monument of the zeal, energy, and thirst after knowledge of its author.

Caius Plinius Secundus, ordinarily called the Elder to distinguish him from his nephew, who was also an eminent man of letters, was born at Verona or Como, A.D. 23. As the son of a Roman of noble family, he was early devoted to a military career, and spent a considerable portion of his life in the army, where he gained distinction in various campaigns; and on his retirement from actual service, was appointed by the Emperor Procurator of Spain. Though much occupied in public work he was an enthusiastic student, and devoted all his intervals of relaxation to literature. During dinner he was either being read to or was busily engaged in taking notes, and when travelling his secretary was in constant attendance upon him. Even while enjoying his bath, he was busy dictating or imbibing knowledge. He was a tremendous worker, and besides the “Natural History,” wrote a voluminous treatise on the German Campaign and various other books. He fell a victim to his love of science, as while commanding the fleet he was witness of the great eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, and while making observations ashore he was overwhelmed in thick sulphurous vapour.

Pliny had an intense love of nature, and to his own researches he added those of a great body of other observers, sifting with infinite patience from their labours whatever he deemed of value, and accumulating vast stores of observation. That he at times drew false conclusions is sufficiently evident, but it is clearly not just to apply a nineteenth-century standard to his labours. He gave credence to many stories that have since been proved erroneous, but he always honestly strove after truth. When he tells us, for example, that the appearance of an owl is a portent of misfortune, he adds, “but I myself know that it hath perched upon many houses of private men and yet hath no evil followed.”

At the beginning of each book Pliny is careful to give the names of the authors that he has consulted for it.⁠[6] As the subjects that he treats of are very varied the total list of authorities is very large. Some of the names, such as Virgil, Archimedes, and others, are those of men still held in reverence; while many are naturally now but little known, their works having perished. As an illustration of the thoroughness of Pliny in the matter we will give an illustrative list—that which precedes his eighth book, dealing with land animals. He divides his lists always into two sections, and commences with the authors of his own country. These in this particular instance are Mutianus, Procilius, Verrius Flaccus, L. Piso, Cornelius Valerianus, Cato the Censor, Fenestella, Trogus, Actius, Columella, Virgil, Varro, Metellus Scipio, Cornelius Celsus, Nigidius, Trebius Niger, Pomponius Mela, and Manlius Sura. His foreign authorities are considerably more numerous, and are, naturally, most of them Greek writers: Polybius, Onesicritus, Isidorus, Antipater, Aristotle, Demetrius, Democritus, Theophrastus, Euanthes, Hiero, Duris, Ctesias, Philistus, Architas, Philarchus, Amphilochus the Athenian, Anaxipolis the Thasian, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes the Milesian, Antigonus the Cymæan, and twenty-three others, whom it is needless to add to the list, as it is already quite long enough to illustrate the care with which Pliny fortified his own knowledge with the best aid that he could procure.

Though, doubtless, in some cases, the bearers of these names were travellers and others who contributed but one or two items to the store of knowledge, the greater portion of the names are those of men who, to the best of their ability, were endeavouring to penetrate the secrets of nature. It is a striking fact that at this early period there should be such a body of scientific opinion to draw upon. Pliny tells us that he has dealt with twenty thousand subjects and that this has necessitated the perusal of over two thousand books.

Though the quaintness of some of the ideas we encounter in Pliny raises a smile, yet the real wonder is that he was able to produce a book so excellent, and the more one reads of it the more this truth is impressed upon one’s mind. In many of his ideas he appears to have been far in advance of his age. Thus he distinctly declares that the world is round, and gives lucid reasons for his statement, and in an age of abounding polytheism, when temples innumerable each enshrined the image of some deity, he had the courage to declare that “to seek after any shape of God and to assign a form or image to him is a proof of man’s folly. For God, wheresoever he be and in what part soever resident, all sense he is, all sight, all hearing. He is the whole of the life and of the soul, and to believe that there be gods innumerable, and those according to man’s virtues, as chastity, concord, understanding, hope, honour, clemency, faith, these conceits render men’s negligence the greater.”

The unchanging nature of the East that we have, already seen illustrated by extracts from mediæval writers is even visible in the work of this author of nearly two thousand years ago, for Pliny mentions the people called Seres, beyond Scythia, who fly the company of other people and who are famous for the fine silk that their woods yield. There can be no reasonable doubt but that these exclusive folk were the Chinese. He tells us that they collect this silk from the leaves of the trees, and, having steeped it in water, card it: it being a very pardonable error to conclude that this silk was the product of the tree itself rather than of the silkworm that spun its cocoon amongst its foliage. The men have feet of natural size, while the women’s are so small that Pliny’s informant described them as ostrich-footed. Here we can scarcely doubt that the strange custom of the Chinese in binding up the feet of the women is referred to, and granting this it is an interesting proof of the great antiquity of this barbarous proceeding.

In India, too, it was reported to Pliny that there were certain philosophers who from sunrise to sunset persevere in gazing upon the sun without once removing their eyes, and from morn to eve stand upon one leg on the burning sand. It is remarkable to observe how exactly these austerities and others of like severity and uselessness are still practised by the Fakirs of India. He tells us too of others who had strange influence over venomous serpents, doubtless the snake-charmers whose descendants still exhibit their skill, and refers to the people of India hunting and taming the elephants and using them as beasts of burden, as valuable aids to locomotion and for purposes of war.

Pliny’s book has gone through many editions and translations. Of these we need but mention that of Dalecamp in 1599; De Laet in 1635, Gronovius, 1669; Pinet, 1566; and Poinsinet de Sivri, 1771. An English version of delightful quaintness of language and expression is the translation issued by Dr. Philemon Holland in the year 1601. He is the only writer who has given a complete rendering of Pliny’s book in English.⁠[7] Bostock also, in 1828, began a translation and issued the first and thirty-third books as a specimen of a proposed rendering of the whole work. His death prevented the accomplishment of the task. The reader in subsequent passages will readily detect for himself from which source any quotation we give is derived, as the diction of Holland is far more quaint and old-fashioned than that of the later translator.

Several other writers of antiquity influenced the mediæval authors, but it is scarcely necessary to detail their labours at any length, since if they lived before Pliny he borrowed from them, and if they lived afterwards they borrowed from him, so that we practically in Pliny get the pith and cream of all. Herodotus, the “Historiarum parens,” as Cicero terms him, was, we read, scarcely a historian, but one finds divers passages from time to time in his descriptions of Egypt and other lands that throw an interesting side-light on the natural history of the country under consideration, and these have a certain value. A writer of greater direct importance is Aristotle, one of the most illustrious naturalists of antiquity. It will be remembered that his works supplanted the love of gold, of sumptuous apparel, even the charms of music in the breast of Chaucer’s philosopher, and formed an all-sufficient solace for a light cash box, a sparse wardrobe, and the missing “fidel.” The passage is interesting as it indicates the repute in which the works of the ancient writer were held in the days of the poet:—

Aristotle had very exceptional opportunities of acquiring knowledge, as his royal patron and friend, the potent Alexander the Great, was able and willing to afford him aid that was invaluable to him. Thousands of men, huntsmen, fishermen, soldiers in distant garrisons of his far-stretching realm, by royal command were instructed to keep a keen outlook, and to forward to Aristotle anything that was curious or rare, or to procure him, if possible, any specimen he desired to possess. His book “De animalibus,” though naturally not free from a certain amount of error, and the intrusion of second-hand hearsay, is a mine of industry and research and not unworthy of the special opportunities that gave it birth.

In the study of our subject during the Middle Ages, several sources of information are open to us. Of hooks on natural history, pure and simple, there are none; their day was not yet. The love of nature for its own sake was a later birth, but the books of travels often detail the zoology and botany of the lands journeyed through. Then there are the medical books, containing the most extraordinary remedies, or perhaps it would be safer to say, prescriptions, for the ills of suffering humanity, and which more or less fully describe the source and origin of the various ingredients in their gruesome pharmacopœia, and with these we may class the books on social economics, dealing with gastronomy, gardening, the distillation of essences, and so forth, and which necessarily deal in some degree with the life-history of the materials that are introduced. In addition to these we have what are termed bestiaries, books that treat the animals and plants as so many lay figures to be clothed upon with any moral that, with often scant regard to facts, will serve to enforce a dogma. To these must be added the armories or books on heraldry, where the lions, elephants, bears, and other devices of blazonry, are often very quaintly and graphically described for the benefit of those, doubtless a considerable majority, to whom they were little more than a name; or to whom, if they had seen them at the Tower of London in the royal collection, further information on creatures so strange was of great interest. In addition to these sources of instruction of more or less value we may fitly refer to the writings of the poets, since in the pages of Chaucer, Shakespeare and the lesser lights of poesy are abundant allusions to the beliefs of the time, in this as in other directions, and many of these are of great interest and value.