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THE EARLY NATURALISTS

1946
Ce

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON BOMBAY - CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO
DALLAS + SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO, OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

THE
EARLY NATURALISTS

THEIR LIVES AND WORK
(1530-1789)

BY

L. ©. MIALL, D.Sc, F.R.S.

MACMILLAN AND CO,, LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1912
Lhe
3

2619 52

COPYRIGHT

PREFACE

THE old naturalists have occupied so much of my leisure
of late years that it becomes a pleasant task to write
about them. My chief aim is to induce such readers as
I may find to make themselves better acquainted with
the founders of modern natural history. To succeed in
this attempt a rather strict selection of authors is indis-
pensable, and I have been forced to omit many of those
workers at details to whom natural history owes so much,
in order to give fair space to the pioneers who opened
out new fields of inquiry or introduced new methods.
I cannot pretend, however, to have been altogether con-
sistent and impartial in my selection. Some old works
have been included, not so much because they are
important as because they give a lively picture of the
state of knowledge in a past age. Insects take up more
than their due share of space, partly because they are
really prominent in the works of early naturalists, partly
because old books about insects give me more than com-
mon pleasure. Such preferences are natural, and if not
pushed too far, may be advantageous to the reader as
well as to the author. No more fatal mistake can be
committed by an author who undertakes to handle a
wide subject than to fancy that he can attain to com-
pleteness unless indeed his work takes the form of an
index; and it is almost as unpromising to divide the

vi PREFACE

space impartially among the persons or things to be
described; the product, however well-proportioned, is
sure to be lifeless.

Some readers will be surprised that I give so wide an
extension to the word early as to include Buffon and
the Jussieus. But the time has already come when
hardly any eighteenth-century naturalists, with the
‘exception of a few eminent students of life-histories
(Swammerdam, Réaumur, &c.), are searched for biological
facts; they are important merely as historical land-
marks. Indeed zoology and botany have been so
largely recast since 1859 that we shall shortly make
Darwin's Origin of Species the era of modern biology,
and consider all naturalists early who precede Darwin.

It would have been a delightful task, had it been
possible, to continue the history through the age of
evolutionary speculation ; to show how Linneeus’ rude
sketch of the kingdoms of nature has been enlarged ;
how new studies, of which Linnzeus had little conception
(comparative anatomy, embryology, geographical distri-
bution and paleontology), have become strong and
fertile ; how a fairly satisfactory grouping of the genera
of flowering plants into families has been devised, how
the cryptogams, long despised as casual and unstable,
have been proved to rival the flowering plants in prac-
tical importance and intellectual interest; and how the
history of extinct animals and plants has been illumi-
nated by a theory of continuous descent. I need make
no apology for having declined so vast and so difficult
an addition.

Some biographers seem to hold that nothing in the
career of a man of science signifies very much except
his effective contributions to knowledge. His mistakes
and failures, however many and grievous, are, they

PREFACE vii

think, no longer a matter of practical concern to any-
body. When we examine a building we consider the
plan and its execution, but do not care to be told how
many bricks were dropped as the work went on. This
is the amiable view of official eulogists, and also of some
writers who, without being bound to praise, consider
nothing but economy of the reader’s time. It may
appear to others that something besides positive achieve-
ment should be recorded. We want to know not merely
what was discovered, but how it was discovered. The
discoveries, even of great men, have often been vitiated
by serious mistakes, which have subsequently been cor-
rected by men of far inferior power. Whether in such
cases we give the whole credit to the man who first
indicated the process, or to the man who first arrived at
a true result, we do some injustice and at the same time
misinform our readers, who may fairly claim that in
important cases all the essential steps in the discovery
should be laid before them. We want to know how
some real discoverers began by trying false routes, how
others were impeded by time-honoured delusions, or by
overbold speculation. These things are part of the
story, and cannot be omitted without loss.

The classics of natural history are not very much
studied in our own time. Few of them command high
prices, except those which treat of birds, or are richly
illustrated, or exemplify the history of printing and
engraving, and only public libraries take much pains to
enlarge their collections. Hence the works of such early
masters as Malpighi, Swammerdam, Ray, Leeuwenhoek
and Réaumur are still within the purchasing power
of ordinary students. I wish that every naturalist
might deem some acquaintance with them as part of
his equipment.

viii PREFACE

The time bestowed upon the Early Naturalists by
author and reader will have been well spent if it helps
them to attain a comprehensive view of biological his-
tory, which is indispensable to the appreciation of recent
work. History is necessary to the student who practises
modern methods and is inspired by modern ideas, for
the same reason that embryology is necessary to com-
parative anatomy ; to know what is we must know how
it came to be.

I have to thank Dr. B. Daydon Jackson for corrections
and elucidations of material value.

L. C. M.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION: NATURAL HISTORY DOWN TO
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY : ; , ; 1

SECTION I. THE NEW BIOLOGY

THE REVIVAL OF BOTANY . , : ; . 12
Otto BRUNFELS . : ; 3 : : . 17
Hizronymus Bock (TRacus) ; : : 20
LronHARD Fucus. 3 : s : : . 24
VALERIUS CoRDUS 3 : ‘ 5 F 3 . 28
CONRAD GESNER . ‘ ; : : F ‘ . 28
MartruHias DE L’OBEL . ‘ ‘ : , : . 382
ANDREA CESALPINI (OR CESALPINO) . ‘ . 36
PIERRE BELON . : ‘ ‘ F . . 40
GUILLAUME RONDELET . : ; . F : . 45

Tue ENCYCLOPZDIC NATURALISTS OF THE RENAISSANCE 47

SECTION II. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT
LANDS (EARLY TIMES TO THE END OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY) : : ; ; . 451

x CONTENTS

SECTION III. SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURAL-
ISTS AND A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH
AGRICULTURIST

WILLIAM TURNER.
JOHN GERARD
JOHN CAIUS .
THomMAS MOUFET .
CHARLES BUTLER .

OLIVIER DE SERRES

SECTION IV. RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-
WORKERS

JOHN RAY AND FRANCIS WILLUGHBY .

Martin LISTER

SECTION V. THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS
Rosert Hooke
MARCELLO MALPIGHI
NEHEMIAH GREW .
JAN JACOBZ SWAMMERDAM .

ANTONY VAN LEEUWENHOEK

SECTION VI. EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE
ANATOMY

FRANCESCO REDI .

CLAUDE PERRAULT AND HIS COLLEAGUES IN THE FRENCH
ACADEMY OF SCIENCE

Somz ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES OF REDI AND PERRAULT

PAGE

76
78
79
84
87
93

99
130

135
145
166
174
200

225

229
237

CONTENTS xi

SECTION VII. THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

JOHANN LEONHARD FRIscuH . , ; : : . 240
RENE-ANTOINE FERCHAULT DE REAUMUR : . 244
ABRAHAM TREMBLEY . F P : . 279
CHARLES BONNET . . . . 284
PIERRE LYONET . 3 ; ‘ : . 291
Avucust JOHANN ROESEL von ROSENHOF ‘ 293

THE INVESTIGATION OF THE Puss Motu (1634-1892) . 303

SECTION VIII. LINNAWUS AND THE JUSSIEUS
Cari Linnzus (LINNE) : : . 310
Some EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER : . 337

BERNARD DE JUSSIEU; ANTOINE LAURENT DE JUSSIEU 351

SECTION IX. BUFFON
Grorces Louis LECLERC, COoMTE DE BUFFON . 359

1789 AND LATER 390

INDEX . : : ; : . : 392

INTRODUCTION: NATURAL HISTORY DOWN
TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

THE beginnings of natural history are wholly unknown
to us. In a very remote past men made themselves
acquainted with some of the properties of plants and
with some of the habits of common animals, learned to
distinguish a few of the more conspicuous kinds, and
gave names to such as seemed to them important or
curious. The most interesting to us of these early
inquiries were made before the Christian era in Greece ;
similar investigations were no doubt pursued in Egypt,
India and other eastern countries, whose history is less
accessible.

The beautiful land of Greece, intersected and indented
in many places by the sea, rising into lofty mountains,
enjoying a climate propitious to labour, well furnished
with small harbours, and having ready access to all
Mediterranean ports; more than all the rest, inhabited
by a people of singular enterprise, was upwards of two
thousand years ago the cradle of the sciences. Neither
Asia nor Africa has done so much for the scientific
education of the world as the little country of Greece.
The heavenly bodies, the seasons, the winds, the life of
animals and plants were there observed with eager
curiosity. Ploughmen, gardeners, vine-growers, wood-

A

2 INTRODUCTION

men, shepherds, herdsmen, horse-breeders, dog-fanciers,
hunters, fowlers, fishermen and beemasters handed down
to their sons the slight improvements which had brought
them success. Physicians were highly esteemed, and
gave employment to druggists and root collectors, who
sought out rare plants, not disdaining to practise
superstitious rites, possibly as a means of keeping out
competitors." From such informants as these much
knowledge concerning plants and animals was collected,
and at length recorded in books, most of which are now
known only by chance quotations. Herodotus describes
the rivers, climates and remarkable animals of the distant
countries which he had visited in the course of his travels.
Xenophon, who was not only a general, an historian, and
a moralist, but an inquisitive naturalist and sportsman
as well, shows how much attention had been bestowed
upon animals before the age of systematic treatises. He
gives lively descriptions of the hares, deer, wild boars
and hounds which amused his leisure, and contributes
the valuable information that in his day lions and
leopards still haunted Thrace, Macedonia or the wild
country further to the north.

Some of the Athenian philosophers discoursed upon
natural phenomena, and especially upon the phenomena
of life, with an acuteness and comprehensiveness which
have moved the admiration of all succeeding generations.
Aristotle, who dealt with the whole range of science,
surprises the modern reader by his knowledge of migra-
tion (not only in the easily observed crane, pelican and
quail, but in the mackerel and tunny), of the artifice by
which the angler-fish captures its prey, of the brood-
pouch of the male pipe-fish (in this case the facts were
only partly understood), of the laying of eggs by worker-

1Theophrastus, Hist. Plant., IX, Ch. 8.

INTRODUCTION 3

bees (egos which produce only drones), of the sound-
producing mechanism of the cicada and the grasshopper,
of the hectocotylus-arm of some Octopod, of sharks
attached to the mother by a kind of placenta, of the
early stages of the developing chick, and of many more
secrets of nature. It is true that much of his knowledge
is drawn from other observers, as words like “it is said,”
continually remind us, and that hardly any of his stories
are perfectly right, but what a range of curiosity they
indicate! We find too abundance of general remarks on
structure, valuable because they go just as far as obser-
vation extended and no farther, such generalisations as
Bacon called “ axiomata media,” e.g. that horned quadru-
peds, with no upper front teeth, ruminate; that birds
which are armed with spurs are never armed with
lacerating claws; that in poultry the eye is closed
chiefly by the lower lid, but in owls by the upper lid ;
that insects with more than one pair of wings may
bear a sting in the tail, but that such a sting is never
found in two-winged insects. Aristotle is the real
founder of Comparative Anatomy, and perhaps no
science ever made so prosperous a start, enriched from
its birth with such a multitude, not only of facts but
ideas.

No pilot can explore unsurveyed channels without a
confidence which sometimes leads to disaster. The Greek
philosophers would have been more than men if they
had not often tried to explain things which they very
imperfectly understood. Aristotle at least well knew the
risks which he ran. “This,” he says, “seems to be the
mode of generation of bees, as ascertained both by reason
and observation. All that takes place is not indeed
cleared up; even if it were, we must rather rely upon
observations than reasoning, and rely upon reasoning

4 INTRODUCTION

only if it agrees with manifest facts (phenomena).”?

We need not be surprised that, in spite of the warning
which he had himself given, and a mental bias towards
scepticism rather than towards credulity, he.should have
taken for granted many beliefs which cannot stand a strict
inquiry. Experiment, which modern science regards as
a chief test of conjectures and a chief means of gaining
new knowledge, was not yet reckoned among the ordinary
resources of the natural philosopher.?

Theophrastus is not to be compared with Aristotle as
a thinker. It belongs to the age in which he lived that
he should have shown the same passion for multifarious
knowledge and the same lack of acquaintance with the
scientific uses of experiment. The two botanical treatises
by Theophrastus which have come down to us are
founded on a wide knowledge of the plants, not only
of Greece, but of Egypt and Persia as well. Some of
these plants must have been minutely investigated,
for details are noted which were little attended to by
the botanists of modern Europe until the time of
Malpighi. The natural history of Theophrastus, like
that of Aristotle, was far too extensive to be the pro-
duct of a single life-time, but who his predecessors were,
and what learning they transmitted to him, are questions
to which no satisfactory answers can be returned.

The botanic garden of Theophrastus is no better
authenticated than the royal menageries and the army
of collectors, which are said to have provided materials
for the zoological studies of Aristotle. It is vouched

1 De Generatione, III, x, 25.

? We can only point to two examples of deliberate scientific experiments in
Greek authors, those on the reflection and refraction of light, contained in a
treatise on Optics often attributed to Ptolemy, and those on the numerical
relations of the musical scale, for which Diogenes Laertius gives the credit to
Pythagoras.

INTRODUCTION 5

for by Diogenes Laertius, an uncritical writer, who
flourished some five hundred years after the death of
Theophrastus, and Diogenes speaks of a garden, not
of a botanic garden.

If Greek liberty and civilisation could have endured,
Greek philosophy and science would no doubt have
overcome many of their early difficulties, among which
we must reckon an undue propensity to argument.
But a long course of crushing misfortunes arrested
their progress. Alexandria now became the great
centre of learning and science, and here a Greek and
Semitic school of much celebrity laboured to extend
the knowledge of geometry, astronomy, optics and
geography. Human anatomy also was diligently and
profitably studied in Alexandria under Herophilus,
Erasistratus and their successors, but after Aristotle
and Theophrastus no great progress was made in
natural history until science of every kind died out.
The most important treatises which have come down
to us from the Roman empire are the Materia Medica
of Dioscorides and the Natural History of Pliny.

Dioscorides recorded what was known of the occur-
rence, form, colour and properties of medicinal plants ;
he paid great attention to the names of the plants;
his classification is utilitarian, being mainly founded
upon the useful products which the plants yield. Now
and then, however, a succession of plants belonging to
the same family (Labiates, Umbellifers, Composites,
Borages, or Leguminose) shows that real affinities had
been perceived and made use of. Close resemblance
in leaf and stem did not conceal from him the funda-
mental unlikeness of the stinging nettle and the dead-
nettle, which some botanists of a much later age brought

1Meyer, Gesch. der Botanik, Vol. I, p. 152.

6 INTRODUCTION

together again. When botany began to revive, the
writings of Dioscorides were considered by French,
German and Italian herbalists as one of the most
precious legacies of ancient learning.

Pliny’s Natural History is a vast and uncritical
encyclopedia, which probably contains not a single
new observation in biology. The book has a value,
however, if not the kind of value that we expect.
Frequent notices of the practical arts of the ancients
supply information which can be found nowhere else,
and Pliny abounds in that philosophical eloquence with
which in a much later age Buffon was wont to dignify
his expositions of natural processes.

After Pliny the decline of European science, art,
literature and civilisation was general and rapid. Galen,
who died about 200 a.p., is the last of the ancient
anatomists, Oppian (contemporary with Galen) the last
of the ancient naturalists. The decline in the fine arts
may be roughly estimated by comparing the architecture
and sculpture of the age of Constantine with those of
the times of Augustus or Trajan. The higher Greek
literature ends with Lucian (d. about 200 a.p.), the
higher Latin literature with Claudian (d. about 410 a.p.);
about 600 a.D. the knowledge of Greek ceased in Western
Europe.

During the greater part of a thousand years men
despaired of progress and of their own powers. It was
widely believed, as it has been in less gloomy ages, that
man had declined, not only in knowledge and skill, but
in strength, stature and longevity. The earth and even
the heavens were thought to show signs of decay. But

1For ancient opinions on the decay of nature Mayor’s Juvenal (Vol. II.
pp. 374-6) may be consulted. To the modern references given by Ma. or
and Jonston, History of the Constancy of Nature, 12mo. Lond., 1657 Tonston
like Hakewell (quoted by Mayor), takes the cheerful modern wiew., :

INTRODUCTION 7

this superstition was at length refuted by undeniable
facts. About the millenary year (1000 a.p.) faint signs
of improvement began to appear; by the year 1200 it
is clear to us, though it may not have been clear to men
then living, that the winter-solstice was past. It has
ever since been the rule in western Europe that every
generation should enlarge the knowledge bequeathed by
its predecessor.

No doubt the observation of birds, insects and plants
never died out among the people, but the scanty
literature of the middle ages disdained to learn from
the people. Emblems from nature were collected
from Latin and Greek authors, used as matter for
sermons and commentaries, and carved in wood and
stone. The treasury of this sort of learning was
Physiologus, who was neither a man nor a book, but
a literature in prose and verse, which lasted for a
thousand years and was translated into many languages.
In the bestiaries, or books of beasts,! where Physiologus
is the spokesman, the reader is told that the lion sleeps
with his eyes open, fears a white cock, and makes a
track with his tail, which no beast dares to cross; that
the crocodile weeps when it has eaten a man; that the
little beast called Grylio is so cold as to put out a fire ;
that the elephant has but one joint in his legs, and
cannot lie down; that the hedgehog sticks ripe grapes
upon its prickles, and so carries them home to its
children ; that Cetus (the whale) spreads sand on its
back and goes to sleep, floating at the surface of
the sea; that mariners mistake it for an island, land

1See Wright’s Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages
(1841), and Langlois, Connaissance de la Nature et du Monde au Moyen Age
(1911). The original Physiologus is said to have been written in Greek

at Alexandria in the second century, 4.p. (Lauchert, Gesch. des Physiologus,
1889).

8 INTRODUCTION

upon it, and begin to get ready a meal, when the
whale, awakened by the heat of the fire, plunges and
drowns them all; that the eagle can look at the sun
when it is at the brightest; that aged eagles fly into
the east, dip three times into a certain fountain,
and become young again; that the pelican, having
slain her own young, tears her body with her beak,
when the blood, falling upon the young birds, brings
them back to life.

Even in the times when book-learning was well-nigh
extinct, some practical knowledge of plants survived.
Agriculture and horticulture were attentively pursued
wherever the authority of princes or the sanctity of
religious houses afforded protection against lawlessness.
From the age of Charlemagne, which some historians
have regarded as the nadir of learning and literature,
there have come down to us the great emperor's edicts
for the government of his dominions and estates. One
of these (Capitulare de villis omperialibus) enumerates
the fruit-trees, vegetables, medicinal herbs and flowers
which were ordered to be grown in the imperial gardens.

Harle* has prepared a list of English names of garden
plants, which have come to us from the Latin, not
through French or any other modern Romance language,
but through intermediate Anglo-Saxon forms. Among
the examples are the following :—

Latin. Anglo-Saxon. English.
Cannabis Henep Hemp.
Caulis Caul Kale.
Crotalum Hratele [Yellow] Rattle.
Febrifugia Feferfuge Feverfew.

1These are called capitularia, because they were arranged under heads

(capitula). They are printed in the Monumenta Germanie Historica, fol.
Hanover, 1835 (Legum tom. i.).

? English Plant Names, sm. 8vo. Oxford, 1880, pp. xlix, 1.

INTRODUCTION 9

Latin. Anglo-Saxon. English.
Ficus Fic Fig.
Lactuca Lactuce Lettuce.
Linum Lin[sed] Lin[seed].
Napus Nep [Tur]nip.
Petroselinum Petersilie Parsley..
Radix Reedic Radish.

It is evident that these names were introduced by
gardeners who understood Latin, and there can be little
doubt that the gardeners were the monks, of whose skill
in horticulture there are abundant indications in medieval
annals.

Medicine was practised during many generations
chiefly by the religious and the Jews; relics and holy
water were more esteemed than drugs... When physi-
cians became plentiful, they were nearly always astro-
logers as well, and during a great part of the middle ages
all men of science either called themselves astrologers
or were popularly supposed to practise astrology and
magic.

To the thirteenth century are generally ascribed the
introduction of the mariner’s compass, gunpowder, read-
ing glasses, the Arabic numerals and the denary
scale. In the fourteenth century trade with the east
was extended so far as the Saracen power permitted ;
central Asia and even the far east were visited by
Europeans; universities were multiplied; popular
government, ecclesiastical reformation and national sen-
timent gained strength ; the revival of learning and the
revival of painting and sculpture proceeded in Italy
with unexampled rapidity and force. The fifteenth
century is marked by the invention of wood engraving
and printing, and by the great geographical discoveries

1Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, Vol. III, p. 412.

10 INTRODUCTION

of the Portuguese in the east and of the Spaniards in the
west.

Though intellectual life abounded during all these
years, hardly any attention was paid to science. One
or two names indeed, such as those of Roger Bacon and
Regiomontanus, show that the aptitude for scientific
research already existed, though it was liable to be fatally
discouraged by the church (which claimed the exclusive
right of teaching), the scholastic philosophy and the
popular dread of magic. In the remarkable but still
imperfectly understood career of Roger Bacon we note
the stimulus which he received from Arabian science, his
indignant protests against the ignorance and presump-
tion of the scholastics, the interdiction of his lectures
at Oxford by one general of the Franciscans, and his
imprisonment for many years by another. Brunetto
Latino remarked, when he saw Bacon’s magnetised
needle pointing to the pole, that no navigator would
dare to use it for fear of being called a magician.
Science was rarely tolerated in the thirteenth, four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, except when it took its
least exciting forms, or was patronised by some great
churchman.

We form some notion of the state of natural history
during the later middle ages by examining the treatise
De proprietatibus rerum, written by Bartholomew of
England, a mendicant friar, before the middle of the
thirteenth century, and translated into English in 1397.
We are not surprised to find that Bartholomew had but
an indistinct notion of Egypt, India and the “moun-
tains hyperborean,” of dragons, griffins and sirens, but
we are amused to see how little pains he took to
observe and interpret the commonest natural facts.
The succession of colours in the rainbow is given as

INTRODUCTION 11

red, blue, green;? an oar dipped into water seems to
be broken because of the swift moving of the water ;
bees are said to load themselves with small stones that
they may be more steadfast against blasts of wind (this
is taken from Aristotle); the crab, we are told, waits
till the oyster gapes, and then puts a stone between the
shells, so that he may gnaw the oyster’s flesh ; the fox
halts, because his right legs are shorter than the left.?
These things were written about the time when the
most beautiful parts of the great churches of York,
Lincoln and Salisbury were being reared, and when
Merton College was being founded at Oxford. They
were not mere popular fables, but the deliberate state-
ments of a man learned according to the highest standard
of the thirteenth century, who had taught in the great
university of Paris. Nor were they rejected by the
readers for whom they were written, but copied, trans-
lated time after time, re-edited, abridged, and at length
multiplied by printing.

1 This succession had a mystical meaning ; red was a symbol of fire, blue of
water, green of earth. For more than five hundred years men went on

repeating an error which might have been corrected at once by observation of
an actual rainbow.

2Some medieval writers say this of the badger.

SECTION I. THE NEW BIOLOGY
THE REVIVAL OF BOTANY

THE emancipation of the biological sciences from tradi-
tional learning was long hindered by the pretensions of
an obsolete medicine. It is not difficult to understand
that the extraordinary complexity of most questions
relating to health and disease should have made medicine
slow to adopt scientific methods, or that the medical
profession should have been sensitive about its reputa-
tion and prone to assert its infallibility. In the six-
teenth century botany was regarded as a main branch
of medicine, and may be said to have constituted nearly
the whole of therapeutics. Euricius Cordus, who was
in all things a reformer, laboured to convince his
hearers and readers that there were three things which
the physician was bound to know: the human body,
the disease and the remedy, but in practice knowledge
of a reputed remedy was held to be the main thing. It
was generally believed that for every ill that flesh is
heir to, nature had designated some plant as the
appropriate cure. Some believed that Providence had
caused particular plants to grow in those districts where
the diseases which they cured were prevalent.1 When

1#.g. Theodore of Berg-zabern, who is known to science by his Latinised
name of Tabernemontanus.

THE REVIVAL OF BOTANY 13

the treatment of diseases by the plants of the country
was held to be so efficacious, it is no wonder that botany
should have been in high esteem. Every physician
professed to be a botanist, and every botanist was
supposed to be qualified for medical practice. For
example, all the botanists who are named in this chapter
practised medicine, except Clusius, whose modern bio-
grapher, Morren, notes it as a singular circumstance
that he was not a physician. The alliance of botany
with medicine provided a livelihood to many a student
of plants, brought hearers to his lectures, and helped
to sell his books, but it forced him to make pharmacy
his main theme. This would have been retarding under
any circumstances, all the more when the pharmacy was
wholly unscientific, relying simply upon the dicta of
ancient and ill-understood authors.1

Before discussing the writings of the botanical re-
formers it will be useful to glance at those which they
sought to replace. About the year 1500 the treatises
which most nearly answered to the herbals of a later
time professed to indicate remedies for all known
diseases, and to trace drugs to their sources. Well-known
animals and minerals were added, sometimes on very
slight grounds, to the plants which yielded the bulk of
the remedies, so that the handbook of medicine became
an encyclopedia of natural history. The most widely
circulated of these books was the Ortus (Hortus) Sani-
tatis, called in German the Gart der Gesundheit, which
had been written in Germany before the invention of
printing. The original was in Latin, and addressed to

1Until our own times the dissecting-room and the lectures of the medical
school furnished the only regular training for the naturalist, while he found in

the medical profession the likeliest means of earning his bread. Baer and
many other nineteenth century naturalists were thus compelled to study

medicine.

14 THE NEW BIOLOGY

the professional classes. After printing became common
the Ortus was reproduced many times, often in popular
forms, while it was translated or otherwise adapted
to the use of different nations. Though “ Dyascorides”
is often quoted, as if from the original, the text is
really a compilation from medieval writers, who were
themselves compilers. A table of diseases shows where
the remedies are described, and takes the place of an
index. Plants furnish the bulk of the illustrations ;
many are drawn from native species, though not one
in three could be recognised by the figure alone.
Among the animals are fabulous creatures, such as
the basilisk. The figure of a snail resembles a horned
quadruped peeping out of a bottle. In the baser
editions the pictures are such as a child might draw,
and sometimes lose all resemblance to the object. A
figure of Greek asphalt, for instance, which was un-
natural to begin with, after passing through the hands
of several copyists, becomes a mere chance collection of
strokes and blotches. Failing natural objects, anything
might be inserted which caught the fancy of the
draughtsman, a monkey perched on a fountain, casks in
a cellar, etc. These books indicate a zero of merit,
above which rise, not only all the herbals produced
after 1530, but all books which contain observations
made direct from nature.

Germany soon took the lead in the revival of botany.
It was not only Germans who felt the need of improved
knowledge. In France Ruel, a physician of Soissons,
spent many years upon the elucidation of Dioscorides,
and the examination of those native plants which might
throw light upon his author. In Italy too scientific

Free choice of subjects, irrespective of the text and of practical: utility,
was the long-standing tradition of the illuminators of inital letters.

THE REVIVAL OF BOTANY 15

research began to revive. Young naturalists, not only
from Italy itself, but from Germany, and now and then
one from England, came to Luke Ghini or to some
other Italian master to be trained in botany and
pharmacy. Pisa, Padua and Bologna had each its
botanic garden, and an academy of natural science was
founded in Naples. In Italy the new scientific move-.
ment was soon quenched by the Church and the princes,
but the torch of learning had been handed to Germany,
and here it was not allowed to go out.’

Along the Rhine, from Switzerland to the Nether-
lands, civilisation and industry had long flourished
together. On the left bank of the river opulent towns
had been built even in Roman times. Centuries after
the fall of the empire, great trade-routes, connecting
Flanders and the Baltic with Lyons on the one hand
and Venice on the other, gave the merchants and
manufacturers of the Rhine access to the great markets
of the world. Here and in the country further to the
east had sprung up that powerful union of seventy
cities known in the thirteenth century as the Con-
federation of the Rhine; here too in a later age were
found influential members of the Hanseatic League.
Printing and wood-engraving established themselves
in the fifteenth century at Mayence, Strasburg and
Cologne. When the Reformation began to stir, the
Rhineland, above the point where the river entered
the “ priests’ lane,” and became enclosed by the arch-
bishoprics of Mayence, Tréves and Cologne, contained
many sympathisers with Luther, who spread also east-
wards into Hesse and westwards into the Palatinate.

1Eurich Cordus and his son Valerius are among the Germans who visited
Italy in the early or middle part of the 16th century for botanical study.
The books of Italian writers on botany and pharmacy were often studied in
Germany about the same time.

16 THE NEW BIOLOGY

With the reform of religion some men combined aspira-
tions after an improved social state; others were eager
to infuse new life into literature, or to free medicine
from the bonds which had long impeded it. Nota few
believed, at least in the early stages of the movement,
that they were simply labouring to remove the corrup-
tions of later ages, and to restore the purity of ancient
times. Those who occupied themselves with the reform
of medicine made it a duty to go back to Dioscorides,
and to clear away the misapprehensions which obscured
his teaching. It was easy to show that the apothecaries
had on the slightest possible grounds treated common
German plants as identical with certain plants of
southern Europe, which ancient pharmacists had cele-
brated as the source of valuable drugs. While these
discussions went on the close study of native species
began to spread, and field-botanists multiplied, especially
it would seem, in and around Strasburg. Few of them
published their observations, but their experience was
not altogether lost ; among the first to take advantage
of the local facilities for printing were Brunfels and
Eurich Cordus. The reform of pharmacy and botany
long retained its Protestant character, and till the close
of the sixteenth century almost every author of a
botanical treatise published in Germany or Flanders
was a Protestant.

BRUNFELS 17

OTTO BRUNFELS!

1484-1534

Herbarum vive eicones... per Oth. Brunf. 3 pts. Fol. Strasburg, 1530-6.
Contrafayt? Kreuterbuch... durch Otto Brunfels newlich beschrieben.
2 vols. Fol. Strasburg, 1532-7.

Brunfels was born at Mayence, and received an uni-
versity education, being destined by his parents for the
church. At the age of thirty-seven he found himself in
a Carthusian monastery, whose restraints now proved
intolerable, for he was strongly impelled to join the
new humanist and reforming movement. In 1521, the
year of Luther’s appearance at the diet of Worms,
Brunfels fled from the cloister. He soon found employ-
ment as a Lutheran pastor, or as a schoolmaster, but
settled at Strasburg in 1524, and henceforth employed
his learning, which seems to have been considerable,
in writing for the booksellers. Pedagogy, theology,
medicine and botany by turns engaged his attention.
It is not easy to understand how he acquired such a
knowledge of medicine as procured for him not only the
doctorate in medicine of the university of Basle, but
considerable repute as a physician. An enterprising
bockseller of Strasburg, named Schott, engaged him to
write a new herbal, which was to take advantage of the
new learning, and also of the remarkable improvements
in wood-engraving, which had been effected of late
years. The first volume appeared only six years
after Brunfels’ settlement in Strasburg, so that his

1 Fuller biographical information will be found in a paper by F. W. E. Roth
in the Botanische Zeitung, 1899, pp. 191-232. There is an interesting dis-

cussion of Brunfels’ botanical work in E. L. Greene’s Landmarks of Botanical
History, Smithsonian Collections, pt. 1, 1909, pp. 165-191.

2 Contrafayt means portrayed or pictured, as in the inscription, ‘‘ Albrecht

Durer’s Conterfeyt ” (1527).
B

18 THE NEW BIOLOGY

preliminary botanical studies must have been slight, all
the more because botany was only one of his occupa-
tions during this busy time. He got help from several
botanists, who are known to have worked at the plants
found in the country round Strasburg; his own share
in the work perhaps consisted largely in incorporating
with the information supplied by field-naturalists pass-
ages from the Materia Medica of Dioscorides, which
had been lately translated into Latin by Ruel and
others.

Brunfels’ herbal, in Latin and German, is illustrated
by near three hundred figures of plants, drawn by Hans
Weydiz, a celebrated artist of the time, or by his assis-
tants. The plants are shown in clear outline, and are
sometimes so faithfully copied that it is still possible to
pick out those which were set before the draughtsman
in a defective condition. Other figures are less adequate;
though the species is often determinable, it is not always
possible to make out even the genus. Sometimes the
figures and the descriptions do not correspond; thus
descriptions of Aristolochia extracted from Dioscorides
and Pliny are illustrated by figures of two species of
Corydalis.

The modern reader will shortly describe Brunfels’
arrangement of plants as haphazard, and such it often
is. If we come across the trace of a natural grouping,
we shall probably find that it is taken from Dioscorides.
Like Dioscorides and the pharmacists who succeeded
him, Brunfels is inclined to put together plants which
are supposed to share the same properties. But we can
only account for some of his sequences by supposing
that he inserted the species just as they came in.

Brunfels’ Eicones went through several editions, and

1Greene, loc. cit., p. 173.

BRUNFELS 19

its success prompted the issue of a German version,
which, being ill-fitted for popular use, was never com-
pleted. Bock’s herbal was the first to meet the needs
of the unlearned.

In 1533, when the new herbals were far from com-
plete, Brunfels was offered the post of town-physician
at Berne. He accepted the invitation, and entered upon
his new duties, but by this time his course was nearly
run; he was soon afterwards struck by mortal illness,
and died at the age of forty-six.

Brunfels won respect, and made many friends. It
is pleasant to find that Bock and Fuchs, both of
whom were engaged upon herbals of their own, warmly
praised his botanical services, as also did Conrad Gesner.
In spite of testimonies like these, we are sometimes
disposed to put the question why this old herbal need
be studied again. The answer is that by figuring from
nature a large number of native plants Brunfels initiated
modern systematic botany. Fuchs, Bock, Gesner, L’Obel
and many more carried on the work which Brunfels
had begun. It was soon discovered that pictures would
not suffice without methodical descriptions, that philo-
sophical arrangement renders comparison easier and more
profitable, and that philosophical arrangement can be
attained neither by logic, nor by ingenious contrivance,
nor by consideration of the wants and wishes of mankind,
but only by patient study of the groups which actually
exist in nature. Study of such groups revealed the
existence of affinity, a property which, after remaining
mysterious during many generations of men, became at
last intelligible. Brunfels, without suspecting it, had
set his foot on a new land.

20 THE NEW BIOLOGY

HIERONYMUS BOCK!
1498-1554

New. Kreutter Buch von underscheydt, wiirckung und namen der Kreutter,
so in teutschen Landen wachsen, &. Fol. Strasb. 1539. Parts 1 and 2
eee Buch, &c. Second edition, with figures. Fol. Strasb. 1546.
Part 3, also with figures, was published at the same time.

Hieronymi Tragi de stirpium, maxime earum que in Germania nostra
nascuntur .,. libri tres... interprete Davide Kybero. 4to. Strasb. 1552.

Bock, a native of Baden, was destined by his parents
for the cloister, but when he grew to manhood, he came,
like Brunfels, under the influence of the new doctrines,
began to study medicine and botany in addition to
theology and philosophy, and at length took the decisive
steps of removing to Zweibriicken in the Palatinate,
setting up as a schoolmaster, and marrying. It was
no doubt an important promotion for him when he
was called upon to attend the duke of Zweibriicken
as physician, and to supervise his botanic garden. Some
years later he was rewarded by a sinecure canonry at
Hornbach, a few miles from Zweibriicken. Protestantism
was then spreading in all parts of the Rhineland, and in
all ranks of society. The dukes whom Bock served, and
even the abbot of Hornbach, favoured the Reformation, so
that Bock, a married man, who had moreover undertaken
the functions of a Lutheran pastor, without apparently
any ecclesiastical sanction, was allowed for many years to
share the emoluments of an ancient monastic foundation.
In spite of his varied employments, for he is believed
to have practised both divinity and medicine, he found
time for oft-repeated botanical excursions, which he

1 The latest and best account of the life of Bock is that of F. W. E. Roth
(Boton. Centralbl., 1898, pp. 265-271; 313-8; 344-7). For information con-

cerning the botanical merits of the Krduterbuch E. L. Greene’s Landmarks,
pt. 1, pp. 220-64, may also be consulted.

BOCK 21

generally made in peasant’s dress, so as to excite little
notice. The excursions gradually took a wide range ;
many places between the Rhine and the Moselle were
visited, besides countries as distant as Switzerland and
Tyrol. Bock, who seems to have been a sociable,
friendly man, became known in some of the Rhenish
cities, especially to Brunfels and other botanists of
Strasburg ; he corresponded also with Gesner of Zurich.
A young man, named Jacob Theodor of Berg-zabern,
who was afterwards known throughout Europe as
Tabernzemontanus, was first a pupil and afterwards an
assistant of Bock’s during this Hornbach time. Bock
himself tells how his honoured friend Brunfels came
out on foot from Strasburg to Hornbach (some sixty
English miles) and pressed him to write in the mother-
tongue a new herbal for the instruction of the German
people.

Bock spent some fifteen years amidst these occupa-
tions, disturbed only by symptoms of waning health,
but about the year 1548 he was called upon to face
changes disastrous to his happiness. By this time the
herbal in its German form was complete. The pros-
pects of the Reformation in Germany had meanwhile
become clouded ; a new duke of Zweibriicken and a new
abbot of Hornbach withdrew their support from the
Lutheran pastor, who was obliged to remove for a time
to Saarbriicken, where the count, whom Bock had
treated successfully in grave illness, offered hospitality
and countenance. All his ten children except two died
before him, and the only surviving son was deprived
of the Hornbach canonry, which the father had resigned
in his favour.1 Amidst calamities like these a wasting

1Bock returned to Hornbach not long before his death, and was buried
there ; whether he was reinstated as pastor is not known.

22 THE NEW BIOLOGY

disease, from which Bock had long suffered, carried him
off at the age of fifty-six.

The new Krdéuterbuch (parts 1 and 2) appeared
about six years after Brunfels’ visit to Hornbach. It
was written in German, and at first contained no
figures. The inclusion of many more plants, the fuller
and more lively descriptions and the homely style gave
it a marked advantage over the German translation
of Brunfels’ Hicones, which was soon discontinued. The
second edition of the Krduterbuch, besides a new third
part, were made more attractive by the introduction
of figures, drawn by David Kandel, a young self-taught
artist of Strasburg, who worked under Bock’s eye at
Hornbach. The figures are smaller and coarser than
those of Brunfels; many are copied from the herbal
of Fuchs, which appeared in the interval between Bock’s
two editions. In front of the illustrated editions of the
herbal we find a portrait of Bock at the age of forty-six,
drawn by David Kandel. An arch of florid design
occupies so large a part of the page that scanty room is
left for anything else. The naturalist is shown in half-
length side-view, holding a flowering bulb in his hand.
The straight hair is combed down to the neck behind,
and over the top of the forehead in front; both
chin and cheeks are shaven. The features are good,
the well-shaped nose prominent, the eyes a little up-
turned, the expression grave but pleasing. In the
coloured copies all that is attractive disappears.

Meronymi Tragi de stirpium libri tres is a translation
of the herbal into Latin by David Kyber of Strasburg,
the figures of plants being retained. The Latin trans-
lation was never reprinted, but seven editions in German

appeared after Bock’s death ; the last bears the date of
1630.

BOCK 23

After nearly four hundred years we still read with
pleasure Bock’s accounts of the pistillate flowers of the
hazel, the deciduous calyx of the poppy, the pistil of the
bilberry, the rooting stems of water-lilies, the hooks on
the twining stem of the hop, and the shooting-out
of the seeds of the wood-sorrel. He notes more dis-
tinctly than any other botanist of the time the difference
between stamens and styles, but has no true notion
of their physiological office, not even recognising that
one or both may be found in every flower. Particulars
of place and environment are added, and the descrip-
tions are enlivened by curious details, which give
them in many places a vivacity to which the text of
Brunfels or Fuchs makes no approach.

Bock’s grouping of plants is largely traditional. He
accepts the ancient division into trees, shrubs and
herbs. Since he gives no synoptic tables, far less
family-names with definitions, it is a matter of conjecture
what groups of genera, if any, he regarded as marked
out in nature. He inherited from Theophrastus and
Dioscorides a few natural groups :—Umbellifers, Thistles,
Chicories, Legumina, Labiates, Solanaceous plants,
Crucifers, Mallows, Catkin-bearing and Cone-bearing
trees, none of them precisely limited, and to this list he
added the (unnamed) Borages. He places rosemary and
lavender among the Labiates, notwithstanding their
woody stem. The nettle and the dead-nettle are
described in close succession, though the distinctive
generic names of Dioscorides are quoted. We find
groups founded on habitat (e.g. water-plants), or on
usefulness to man (e.g. kitchen-herbs), or on habit (e.g.
Serpentarize or climbers, a group of Bock’s own pro-
posing). ‘The special value of floral characters was then
unsuspected.

24 THE NEW BIOLOGY

In his preface Bock shows the importance of associa-
ting related or similar plants, and pours contempt on
the alphabetical arrangement. We must not however
read the modern meaning into his word affinaty.
There is no reason to suppose that the notion of a
common descent for the pea and the bean, or for
rosemary and lavender, had ever crossed his mind.’

LEONHARD FUCHS
1501-1566

De Historia Stirpium Commentarii insignes, maximis impensis et vigiliis
elaborati, adjectis earundem vivis plusquam quingentis imaginibus nunquam
antea ad nature imitationem artificiosius effictis et expressis, Leonarto
Fuchsio medico hac nostra ztate longe clarissimo autore, &c. Fol. Basil.
1542.

Fuchs was born at Membdingen in Bavaria in 1501.
His original calling was that of schoolmaster, and his
favourite study ancient literature. At the university
of Ingolstadt, a stronghold of Catholicism, he made
acquaintance with the writings of Luther, and was
thereby led to adopt Protestantism. Having graduated
in arts, he studied medicine and took his doctor’s degree
in that branch, becoming after a short interval professor
of medicine. He was next made physician to the mar-
quis of Brandenburg at Anspach, and became favourably

1«« Und hab in gedachten biichern gemeinlich disen Process und Ordnung
gehalten, nemlich das ich alle Gewichs so einander verwandt und zugethon
oder sonst einander etwas dnlich seind und verglichen zusammen doch under-
schiedlich sind. Und den vorigen alten Brauch oder Ordnung mit dem ABC
wie das inn den alten Kreutter buchern zu ersehen hindan gestelt. Dann die
Gewiichs nach dem ABC in Schrifften zuhandeln gar ein grosse ungleichheit
und irrung geberen, &c.” (Bock’s Preface.)

The word affinity or some synonym appears in Aristotle (De Partibus, 1V
6, 3), and in the natural history books of the sixteenth and seventeenth net
turies A.D., such as those of Fuchs, Dodoens, Gesner, Cesalpini, Caspar
Bauhin, Grew and Ray. Nowhere is a clear distinction drawn between
affinity and general similarity of structure or habit.

FUCHS 25

known by his successful treatment of an epidemic. In
1533 he was invited to resume his professorship at
Ingolstadt, but was soon driven away by Jesuit in-
trigues, and returned to Anspach. On the death of
his patron, the margrave, he accepted a call to the
university of Tiibingen, which had just adopted the
Reformed faith, and here he remained from 1535
till his death (1566). Among his published works are
treatises on medicine and human anatomy.

Fuchs’ first contribution to botanical literature con-
sisted of critical remarks on medicinal plants written
for Brunfels’ Krduterbuch. He then aspired to produce
a herbal of his own, and in 1542 issued his Historia
Stirpium, which was immediately translated into
German.

The text, like that of Brunfels, is drawn chiefly
from ancient authors; the descriptions are briefer, and
show a much slighter acquaintance with the original
texts. The arrangement is alphabetical according to
the Greek names of genera. Fuchs says in his preface
that he would have liked to associate ‘“ congenerous
herbs,” as Dioscorides had done, had such a sequence
been permitted by the pictures; this excuse is uncon-
vincing. Plants are often associated on the ground
of a quite superficial resemblance; Viola includes the
violet, Hesperis and the snowdrop; Stellaria Holostea
and Parnassia come under the Grasses.1_ Fuchs shows

1This remark holds good for early botanists in general. Names like rose
and violet had no definite botanical meaning ; the Christmas Rose, the China
Rose and the Rock Rose have no affinity with the rose of the hedge, nor with
one another; the Dame’s Violet and the Dog’s-tooth Violet no affinity with
the sweet violet and the pansy. In the same way primitive medicine gave the
name of Hepatica to an anemone, and also to the cryptogamous Marchantia,
of Verbena to Verbena officinalis and also to the groundsel ; and of Consolida
(healing) to a number of quite different herbs, which agreed only in having a
reputation for closing wounds (Greene, Landmarks, pp. 176, 231).

26 THE NEW BIOLOGY

little interest in living nature, or in adaptation to
environment, takes notice of few rare plants, and does
not restrict himself to native species; he thought chiefly
of meeting the wants of the pharmacist.

The five hundred woodcuts of the Historia Sterprum
probably surpass in artistic quality any long series of
botanical figures that has ever been published, though
they are not remarkable for minute accuracy. Each
plant fills a folio page, on which no letterpress beyond
the name is allowed to encroach. The outlines are
clear, and there is little or no shading.1 Sometimes
but not often the flower and fruit are shown on
detached branches; the structure of the acorn is
displayed in separate figures; on the other hand the
flowers of the nettle are indicated by mere dots. A
whole tree from the roots to the top branches may
be shown in one view; then the leaves are out of all
proportion to the trunk. In the drawing of an entire
walnut-tree there are only about a score of leaves,
each perhaps one-fifth of the total height; it would of
course have been better to show only a single branch,
as is done in the case of the savin. Greek vase-painters
could draw unmistakable olive-trees, with only one or
two leaves apiece, but natural history cannot allow such
liberties. Fuchs’ own portrait occupies the frontispiece,
while his draughtsmen (Heinricus Fiillmaurer and
Albertus Meyer) together with his engraver (Vitus
Rodolphus Specklin or Speckle) share a page at the
end of the book.

A glossary of difficult terms is prefixed to the Latin
Mstoria Sterpium, but omitted in the German trans-

* The practice of drawing plants in outline probably originated in the
colouring of the figures. Early woodcuts are often coloured by means of
stencils, but this is never the case with Fuchs’ figures.

FUCHS 27

lation. The anthers are called by Pliny’s name of
“apices,” but not clearly distinguished from the styles.
The “glume” is defined as the sheath which encloses
each grain in a grass-spike. The “stipule” is the
sheathing leaf of a grass. A bulb is defined as a
rounded tunicated root, which is retrograde; Theo-
phrastus knew better than this. When he comes to
explain the botanical umbel, Fuchs, like a true scholar,
goes a little out of his way to give the history of the
word, quoting the Greek skiadeion and the Latin
umbella, “qua mulieres vultum vindicant a sole et
zestum arcent.” Cesalpini mentions parasols as being
used on journeys, and they are figured in Anglo-
Saxon MSS.

Fuchs’ letters show that he laboured during many
years to extend his Historia Sturprum. In 1565 he
was ready to publish three parts of what he charac-
teristically describes as an excellent, noble work, con-
taining in each part more than five hundred beautiful
and carefully drawn figures, together with the histories
of the plants. He sought for a wealthy patron to meet
the cost, and got the promise of one contribution. But
in the following year Fuchs died, and the work was
never produced. The manuscript is believed to have
been extant many years later, and the engraved blocks
were long used to illustrate the works of other botanical
authors.

It is unpleasant to have to say of an author who
rendered real service to botany that his character
lacked modesty. Fuchs was in the habit of blowing
his own trumpet, and sometimes he blew it loud, as in
the title of his great work. He showed no jealousy
of other botanists, and often praised what they had
done.

28 THE NEW BIOLOGY

Father Plumier gave the name of Fuchsia to one of
the most beautiful of the garden-flowers which we have
received from America.

VALERIUS CORDUS
1515-1544

The brief and tragic history of Valerius Cordus
(son of the Euricius Cordus already mentioned) can
only be glanced at here, because few naturalists can
acquaint themselves at first hand with the surviving
fragments of his work, which were piously collected by
Gesner. Dying at twenty-nine, he had already made
his mark in science. He is remembered as the dis-
coverer, or one of the discoverers, of sulphuric ether, as
the first to say in print that young ferns spring from
the light dust borne on the back of the leaves, as one of
the first to trace the origin of coal to long-buried vege-
tation. The term pollen, which had been used by Pliny
as the name of meal or any other kind of fine dust,
Cordus applied to the dust emitted by anthers. He has
a special name (papilionaceous) for the flower of Legu-
minosee (Gesner had already compared pea-blossom to a
butterfly).

CONRAD GESNER

1516-1565
C. Gesneri Opera Botanica... Omnia ex Bibliotheca D[om.] ©. J. Trew

nunc primum in lucem edidit et prefatus D[om.] C. C. Schmiedel. 2 pt.
Fol. Norimberge. 1751-71.

Gesner studied at Strasburg, Paris, Basle and Mont-
pellier (under Rondelet), and became skilled in the

1Greene (Landmarks of Botanical History) has given a detailed and
appreciative notice of the botanical work of Valerius Cordus.

GESNER 29

ancient languages as well as in medicine and natural
history. Like all the German and Swiss botanists of
his generation, he was a stout Protestant. His own
father fell in battle, fighting with Zwingli to defend
Zurich against the Catholics of the forest cantons.
Conrad Gesner too perished in the service of Zurich.
In 1564 the city was ravaged by a plague, which
Gesner, who was the public physician, combated suc-
cessfully, though to the injury of his health. Next year
the plague reappeared, and Gesner as before stuck
manfully to his post. This time he did not escape,
but was carried off before he had quite reached the age
of fifty.

Gesner was the most learned naturalist of the six-
teenth century, but he was much more than a naturalist.
He had been professor of Greek at Lausanne, and good
judges have reckoned him among the best Greek scholars
of his age. His Bibliotheca Umiversalis, a bibliogra-
phical account of all writers in Latin, Greek and Hebrew,
his Pandecte Universales, a methodical index to all the
knowledge recorded in books, and his Mcthridates, an
attempt to arrange all the languages of the world
according to their affinities, are works of vast extent
and labour. He only lived to produce one comprehen-
sive biological work, his History of Animals, and that
was not quite complete. For a great History of Plants,
which he was much better qualified to write, he had
made preliminary studies of high promise.

Among the many proofs of his multifarious know-
ledge we may cite his little book on fossils," where he
discourses upon all things which are dug out of the
earth, and figures not only basaltic columns, encrinites,

1De rerum fossilium, lapidum et gemmarum figuris et similitudinibus Liber.
8vo. Tiguri. 1565.

30 THE NEW BIOLOGY

belemnites, &c., but stone-implements and even a lead-
pencil! He says that this last is made of what some
called English antimony, set in a wooden handle. The
figure resembles a modern pencil-case for the waistcoat
pocket.

Gesner, laborious, learned, enlightened, unselfish, ever
zealous to extend the knowledge of nature, had, like
Linnzeus two hundred years later, correspondents in
every country, and suggested or helped many an inquiry.
If somebody was wanted to take up a neglected branch
of natural history, or to edit the writings of a naturalist
who had been cut off before his time, Gesner, loaded as
he was by tasks of his own, was the readiest to lend a
helping hand. Belon, Rondelet, Aldrovandi, Valerius
Cordus, Caius and Turner are to be found in the long
list of those whom he befriended or advised. Even the
Congregation of the Index had recourse to his Biblio-
theca, for information concerning heretical authors,
though they ungratefully put him into the list along
with the rest.

Letters of Gesner give some faint notion of what his
Mistory of Plants might have done for botany. In one
place he explains that flower, fruit and seed afford better
indications of affinity than leaves. It can easily be
perceived, he says, by the organs of fructification that
Staphisagria and Consolida are of kin to Aconite, &c.
He asks a friend to send him a drawing of a tulip-fruit
(the tulip was then a rarity in western Europe) to show
the arrangement of the seeds, which he wished to figure.
He recognises genera, or natural groups of species, as
many had done before him, and says that there are
hardly any herbs which do not fall into genera of two
or more species. The ancients had described one
gentian, but he knew of ten or more. He distinguished

GESNER 31

varieties from species, and demanded proof of constancy
in the characters before he would allow that they were
of specific value.

We are told that Gesner had brought together no
fewer than fifteen hundred figures, many of them drawn
by his own skilful hand, while nearly four hundred had
been engraved on wood. The drawings and wood-blocks
were handed down after his death from one botanist or
publisher to another. Some were used to illustrate
Mattioli’s Epitome (1586). At last the collection, sadly
diminished, was bought by Christopher Jacob Trew, an
eminent physician of Nuremburg, who valued good
books of natural history. Trew entrusted the thousand
figures which came into his hands to the careful editor-
ship of C. C. Schmiedel. Many of Gesner’s drawings
were now engraved on copper and coloured after the
originals ; some of the woodcuts were printed off, while
others, which had suffered injury, were re-engraved on
copper. Two great folios, which include the botanical
works published in Gesner’s life-time, were thus pro-
duced, which give the best notion now to be had of
Gesner’s industry and skill as a botanist. In these
interesting and often beautiful figures we find details of
flowers and fruits never so well presented before. It is
a question whether he used lenses or not; sharp sight
may perhaps have sufficed. Gesner was so short-sighted
as to require concave spectacles for the perception of
distant objects. Like another short-sighted naturalist
(K. E. von Baer), who was remarkable for his power
of distinguishing the minute details of living things,
Gesner may have turned the imperfections of his eyes
to good account.

The pleasing usage of naming the genera of plants
after meritorious botanists was introduced by Gesner.

32 THE NEW BIOLOGY

It was extensively adopted in a later generation by
Father Plumier (1646-1704).

Gesner’s History of Animals is noticed elsewhere. His
publications, though copious and learned, only partially
explain the reverence with which after ten generations
naturalists and scholars still regard the name of Conrad

Gesner.

MATTHIAS DE LOBEL!
1538-1616

Plantarum seu stirpium Historia...cui annexum est Adversariorum
volumen. Fol. Antw. 1576.

From the age of sixteen L’Obel was a diligent observer
of plants. He betook himself at the age of twenty-seven
to Montpellier, in order to study under Rondelet, then
at the height of his fame. Here he paid close attention
to the plants of Languedoc and the Cevennes, which
afterwards yielded him much material for description.
Rondelet died in 1566, and his manuscripts were left to
LObel as his favourite pupil. He did not return home
at once, for the terrible Alva was governor of the Low
Countries from 1567 to 1573, and many of the unfor-
tunate Flemings were glad to take refuge in England.
L’Obel was one of these, and his first botanical work 2
was produced in London. We next find L’Obel in
Antwerp, where he practised medicine. His repute

1 Biographies of L’Obel by Edward Morren are to be found in Bull. Fédér.
Soc. d' Horticulture de Belgique, 1875, and in Biog. Nat. de Belgique.

2Stirpium Adversaris nova... autoribus Petro Pena et Matthia Lobelio.
Fol. Lond. 1570. Pena had been a fellow-student of L’Obel at Montpellier
and a diligent collector of the plants of Languedoc. Legré (La botanique en
Provence au X VI® siécle, 1899) has shown that the Adversaria was largely the
work of Pena. L’Obel and Pena left Montpellier for England together; Pena
remained there for several years, and afterwards became very successful as a
physician in France,

L’OBEL 33

became so considerable that he was. made physician to
William the Silent. Not long after the assassination of
the prince L’Obel was appointed superintendent of the
physic-garden set up at Hackney by Lord Edward
Zouche. He now busied himself with English botany,
and was the first to note several species native to
Middlesex. Among the English botanists whose acquaint-
ance he made was Gerard, whom he esteemed very
lightly. One of L’Obel’s daughters was married to a
London citizen (James Coel, of Highgate), and this
connexion may have helped to detain him in England ;
he died (no doubt in his daughter’s house) at Highgate
in 1616.

L’Obel can hardly have been an amiable man; he
was inclined to boast, and often wrote contemptuously
of his predecessors or contemporaries. But he was
laborious and sagacious, and botany owes a good deal to
him. The Lobelia, named after him by Plumier in 1702,
helps to keep his memory fresh.

His botanical works (Adversaria, Observationes,
Kruydboeck, Icones, &c.) were much esteemed in their
day, and went through several editions. The modern
reader finds the Latin style dry and clumsy, and the
definitions few and obscure, while there is far too much
of an obsolete pharmacy. The woodcuts engraved
expressly for these works are small and of no great
merit. Larger and better ones are often borrowed from
the books of Dodoens or Clusius, with both of whom
L’Obel lived for some years on intimate terms; Chris-
topher Plantin, who published for all three, was no doubt
glad to repeat in a succession of books the blocks which
he had paid for.

We shall now notice some features of these volumes

which are of biological interest.
c

34 THE NEW BIOLOGY

L’Obel makes a distinct advance upon the systems of
earlier botanists. Not content with tacitly adopting
what he took to be a natural sequence, like the early
German botanists, he enumerates in synoptic tables the
species of one genus, or the genera of one family. His
primary division is the ancient one into trees and herbs ;
then the herbs are divided according to the form of the
leaves. Division into Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons
is foreshadowed by the separation of plants with narrow,
simple, parallel-veined leaves from those with broad,
reticulate-veined and incised leaves. His system is
really based on leaf-form, and he unites clover, oxalis
and hepatica merely because all have trifoliate leaves.
He sought to proceed from the simple to the complex,
and for this reason among others began with the grasses,
which he took to be flowering plants of peculiarly simple
structure. From the grasses he went on to irids, lilies,
&c., being guided, as he says, chiefly by the pointed and
simple leaves. Alisma, Sagittaria, some Orchids, &c.
are widely separated on account of their broad leaves.
The cereal grasses lead in another direction to the
Crucifers; here the point of resemblance is suitability
for human food. Cabbages are associated with lettuces,
which are of like habit and “fruitio,” while both are used
in cookery.

Though the shrubs and trees are recognised as distinct
groups, the shrubby Leguminose are laudably, but incon-
sistently, put next to the herbaceous genera. The ferns,
even such unusual forms as moonwort and adder’s tongue,
are kept together.

L’Obel’s works show an extensive acquaintance with
the rare plants of Europe, such as Pyrola, which he had
found at Berchem near Antwerp, Cypripedium Calceolus
from Switzerland and Tyrol, and many more from

L’OBEL 35

Languedoc or the Cevennes. Sprengel! gives a long
list of species which L’Obel was the first to describe.
L’Obel has also something to say about the Papyrus
antiquorum, which he had seen in the botanic garden
of Pisa, about Sarracenia, Tillandsia and other newly
imported American plants, about the wheat-trade of
Antwerp, the manufacture of beer and the trenching of
celery. Drugs of recent introduction are of course noted,
and many therapeutical experiments are recorded. He
tells with pride of plants brought at great cost to
Flanders from Constantinople, Greece, Italy, Asia, Africa
and America, and cites among the glories of his native
land, the eminent botanists and gardeners which it had
produced. The highest place is given to De L’Escluse
(Clusius).

L’Obel seems to have been the first naturalist to call
attention to the fact that the mountain plants of warm
countries descend to low levels further north. His
words are :—‘‘ que jugis montium calidarum regionum
proveniunt, eadem in planis, silvis, silvosis et depressis
regionum septentrionalium exeunt.”* This observation
of L’Obel’s was the starting-point of inquiries which
have been pursued with ever-widening grasp to our own
time. Linnzeus* showed that alpine plants are nearly
the same all the world over, while Ramond‘ observed
that the zones of vegetation on high mountains may
answer to horizontal zones bounded by parallels of lati-
tude, a relation which Humboldt demonstrated on a far
larger scale.

1@esch. der Botanik, Vol. I, p. 311.

2 Preface to Stirpium Illustrationes. 3 Phil. Bot., § 334.

4Ramond, « naturalist of no real weight, had the honour of influencing
the geological speculations of Cuvier, and is once mentioned in Darwin's
Origin of Species. His Voyages au Mont-Pérdu (1801) has some little historical
interest.

36 THE NEW BIOLOGY

ANDREA CESALPINI (or CESALPINO)

1519-1603
De Plantis Libri XVI. 4to. Florent. 1583.

Little is known of the personal history of Cesalpini.
He studied at Pisa (where he was introduced to botany
by Luke Ghini, a teacher of great reputation) succeeded
Aldrovandi as director of the botanic garden at Bologna,
and professed medicine and botany in the university of
Pisa, where again he had charge of a botanic garden.
In old age he removed to Rome, becoming professor
at the Sapienza and physician to the Pope.

In Cesalpini’s time and in the very city where he
taught, ancient beliefs were for the first time submitted
to experimental verification. Galileo, who had attended
Cesalpini’s lectures, investigated the swinging lamps of
the cathedral at Pisa in 1583, the year in which the De
Plantis appeared; in 1588-91 he refuted the Aristo-
telian doctrine of falling bodies by dropping weights
from the leaning tower. We are not told what Cesalpini
and Galileo thought of one another, but it is not difficult
to guess. Cesalpini is reckoned among the physiologists
who anticipated the discovery of the circulation, though
he is not known to have made any experiments of his
own; he was also one of the few sixteenth-century
naturalists who recognised the real nature of animal
and vegetable fossils. His published work shows him
to have been an acute, observant man, full of such
knowledge as was then accessible, and not afraid to
express his opinions, even when they differed from those
of the people about him. Could he have realised that
in botany as in all natural sciences he was but a be-
ginner, he might have done much more than he actually

CESALPINI 37

did. But he was confident and over-emphatic. In the
dedication of his De Metallicis to the Pope we find a
passage which shows that though he claimed for himself
that liberty of opinion which the Catholic Church grants
to those in whose loyalty it has confidence, he made no
secret of his inclination to restrict scientific thought in
less orthodox teachers. He repudiates an unnamed
author because he held opinions contrary to the prin-
ciples of philosophy, and also as a man condemned
(explosus) by the church.?

Cesalpini’s De Plantis gives a short account of plant-
physiology as understood by a Peripatetic philosopher
of the sixteenth century. We find a discussion of the
question whether the seat of life is diffused or concen-
trated ; it is finally placed just where the stem and root
meet, a point which has neither morphological nor
physiological importance. The pith, we are told, is the
seat of innate heat; this strange belief was founded on
the resemblance of the pith surrounded by a cylinder of
wood to a spinal cord enclosed by a vertebral column.
The flower is said to exist, partly to protect the young
fruit, partly of necessity, because the plant becomes
turgid with vapour. Plants have no sexes, because in
them the genitura is not distinct from the materia.
The chief function of the leaves is to shade the buds.

Cesalpini’s system of plants has been praised by Ray
and Linneeus. He threw over the tentative method
practised by L’Obel and others, in order to bring for-
ward a new and logical method of his own. The ancient
division into trees and herbs is of course respected, and

1I suppose that the author aimed at was Bernardino Telesio, who had
attacked the doctrines of Aristotle, and tried to supersede philosophy by
methodical observation. His treatise De natura rerum juxta propria principia

libri IT (Rome, 1565) was condemned in the Index of Pope Clement VIII, that
very Pope to whom Cesalpini dedicated his De Metadllicis.

38 THE NEW BIOLOGY

the seedless plants, which are imperfect, bred of putre-
faction, and intermediate between plants and inanimate
things, are separated from the more perfect plants.
Then he arranges his flowering herbs by the number
of divisions of the seed-vessel, but uses also, without
strict subordination, other characters, such as the
superior or inferior ovary and the position of the
embryo in the seed. These characters, which have
proved valuable to later systematists, are not always
employed with knowledge. Cesalpini confuses divisions
of the ovary with seeds, or even with flowers; he has
no conception of any such morphological unit as the
carpel of modern botany; and his brief characters
drawn from the embryo’ are sometimes unintelligible,
all the more because neither figures nor synoptic tables
are supplied. The student finds himself compelled at
length to depend chiefly on the illustrative genera cited.
Thus judged, Cesalpini will be found to have made no
addition to the short list of truly natural families
already recognised by L’Obel. Instead of increasing the
number he destroyed or spoilt some necessary groups,
leaving only the Umbelliferze intact. Cesalpini stood
aloof from all the botanists of his time, whom he never
quotes, and they paid no attention to him. Reftelius
in the Amenitates Academice (who is only a cloak for
Linneus) says truly that Cesalpini dwelt alone in the
house which he had built.

Cesalpini offers here and there good observations
on the biology of plants. He remarks? that ants gnaw
the embryos of grains of corn, to hinder them from
sprouting when stored underground. He tells how

1It is possible that Cesalpini got the hint of them from Theophrastus.

? Milian, De nat. animalium, II, 25, may have guided Cesalpini in this
passage.

CESALPINI 39

weak plants, unable to support their own weight, may
clasp other plants with their tendrils, and shows that a
tendril may spring from the axil of a leaf, or in the
place of a leaf, or from the apex of a leaf. He names
clematis as an example of a plant which climbs with
the help of its leaf-stalks, ivy as one which climbs by
what he calls ‘‘ hooks,” arranged along the stem like the
feet of a centipede ; others are said to twine like snakes.
He remarks that climbing plants appear to have some
power of perception, for they feel about for a suitable
support, and grasp it when found (Chap. xi). We find
also a good account of the way in which wood-sorrel
throws out its seeds, of the creeping stem, flowers and
fruit of the white and yellow water-lilies, &c. These
plants, or most of them, had been carefully studied
before Cesalpini by Bock, Fuchs and L’Obel, sometimes
by Theophrastus as well.

Cesalpini’s account of the seed and seedling is memor-
able because he clearly states that in many plants there
are two seed-leaves, while in the wheat-grain there is
only one. He is further aware that the seed-leaves may
contain a store of food, and that in leguminous plants
they may never leave the seed.’

1The passages of the De Plantis which treat of the flower and the cotyledons

were attentively studied by Linnzus, whose annotations can still be read in
the library of the Linnean Society.

40 THE NEW BIOLOGY

PIERRE BELON
1517-1564

Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses mémorables trouvées en
Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays estranges redigées en trois
livres. 4to. Paris. 1553.

L’Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins, avec la vraie peinture et
description du dauphin. 4to. Paris. 1551.

De aquatilibus libri duo cum iconibus ad vivam eorum effigiem. Sm. oblong
8vo. Paris, 1553. Three editions of a French translation, in folio, quarto
and octavo, appeared in 1555. One is entitled ‘‘La nature et diversité des
Poissons, avec leurs pourtraicts, &c.” Sm. obl. 8vo.

L’Histoire de la nature des Oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions et naifs por-
traicts retirez du naturel. Fol. Paris. 1555.

Some twenty years after the revival of botany
naturalists began to describe and figure direct from
the objects the fishes and birds of Europe. Zoological
research may have been a little retarded by the absence
of that professional motive which impelled physicians
to examine closely their native plants. The facilities
afforded by the markets, together with the special
knowledge handed down, generation after generation,
by fowlers, falconers and fishermen, had no doubt their
effect in deciding what animals should first be taken in
hand. Belon tells us how, when dwelling in foreign
cities, he used to study the birds and fishes which were
brought to market. During his stay in Padua he was
accustomed to leave home every Thursday evening and
travel all night by boat, so as to reach Venice next
morning. There he stayed on Saturday and Sunday,
employing his time with observation of birds and fishes,
and discourse with fowlers and fishermen. On Sunday
night he took boat again, and was back at his studies
by Monday morning. Nothing is said about personal
observation of live birds and fishes, but this was not

neglected when opportunities offered.

BELON 41

The life of Belon was full of labour and excitement.
He was born in Maine, near the city of Le Mans. As
a young man he was patronised by the Chancellor of
France, by a bishop, and by two cardinals, Tournon and
Chastillon. Thus aided, he went to Germany, where he
studied botany under Valerius Cordus, among others.
After this he set out to explore the Mediterranean
countries, travelling in Turkey, Greece, and the Greek
islands, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and the
Sinaitic Peninsula (1546-9). Shortly after his return
he paid a visit to England, where he fell in with the
Venetian ambassador, Daniel Barbaro, who showed him
drawings of three hundred fishes of the Adriatic, and
permitted him to copy them. The rest of the naturalist’s
life was extremely unlucky. The French king granted
him a pension, which was left unpaid, and Belon was
reduced to great straits. At last he was set upon in
the Bois de Boulogne and murdered; the assassin was
never discovered.

The chief writings of Belon are :—(1) His travels, in
which he sets down all that he could learn or conjecture
respecting the remarkable animals named in ancient
authors (infra, p. 54). (2) His dissertation on the
dolphin. (8) His book of aquatic animals, which has
been cast a little into the shade by the more exact book
of Rondelet; and (4) his book of birds, the best which
the sixteenth century could produce. At the time of
his premature death Belon was translating Theophrastus
and Dioscorides.

Belon’s dissertation on the dolphin occupies a large
part of his Histoire Naturelle des Estranges Poissons
Marins. Its primary purpose was to identify and
describe the dolphin represented on ancient works of
art. The author easily decides that the dolphin of the

42 THE NEW BIOLOGY

ancients was the common dolphin of the Atlantic shores,
often confounded with the porpoise. True fishes which
had been called dolphins, such as the sturgeon, tunny,
&c., are figured and shortly described. In a second
part the anatomy of the dolphin is discussed ; its brain
is said to be very like that of a man; the embryo in the
uterus is figured. The hippopotamus is described from
a live specimen which Belon had seen in Constantinople,
and compared with ancient sculptures. The shells of
the argonaut and pearly nautilus are figured and
compared.

The book on Aquatic Animals aims at giving by
means of descriptions and figures some rough notion of the
various creatures which inhabit the waters. Cetaceans,
the beaver, otter, seal, water-rat, tortoises, true fishes of
many kinds, mollusks, crustaceans and brittle-stars are
included. There is also a small admixture of animals
which Belon did not profess to have met with, such as
the fabled horse of Neptune, the sea-wolf, rather like
a hyeena, which was thought to haunt the shores of
England, and the fish which resembled a monk. Each
animal is shortly described, and its names in different
languages are quoted. Identification of the fishes men-
tioned by ancient writers is a prominent feature. The
illustrations are somewhat rude woodcuts, which never-
theless give a fair notion of the different species. There
is no regular classification, and hardly any definitions of
groups, large or small, but animals which would now be
referred to the same class or order are usually kept
together. The systematic arrangement indicated by the
succession of species is based upon Aristotle. As usual
in the works of early naturalists, too much weight is
given to the general form and the place of abode. The
text is largely a compilation, and most of the figures

BELON 43

are believed to have been copied from Barbaro’s
drawings.

Belon’s History of Birds is the most important of his
contributions to natural history, and was during many
years the best book on the subject. It is a handsome
folio of near 400 pages, illustrated by many hand-
coloured woodcuts, one as a rule to each bird that is
described. About two hundred birds are included; they
are nearly all European, but Belon does not hesitate to
describe with them such foreigners as the ibis, the birds
of paradise, and parrots. In his preface he claims to be
the first to give “naif portraicts des serpents, des
poissons et des oyseaux: le naturel desquels nul autre
nauroit encor fait voir avant nous.”* His draughts-
man was Pierre Goudet, of Paris, whose work does not
fully deserve the praise that it receives from Belon. The
attitudes are often awkward, and the markings of the
plumage are but poorly shown. This was no doubt
contrary to the author's intention, for he says in his
preface that birds differ from one another chiefly in
colour; “touts ont quasi les iambes, ongles, bec et
plumes de mesmes,” which is, of course, far too strong a
statement of the case. There is little to mark the scale
of the different birds; the ostrich and the sparrowhawk,
for instance, are nearly of a size. The descriptions are
unmethodical, and often very slight. Belon is not aware
that a small difference, if constant, may serve to dis-
tinguish one species from another, and the current
popular names (in French) are precise enough for all his
purposes. Yet he distinguishes a good many kinds or
sorts of birds, and brings together all that seem to him
generally similar in structure and mode of life. He
does his best to amuse his readers by relating bits of his

1Gesner’s bird figures were published in the same year (1555).

44. THE NEW BIOLOGY

experience in foreign lands, such as the decoying of
sparrowhawks on the Propontis, or by discussing the
etymology of the French names of common birds, or by
giving the points of a good falcon, or by describing the
succession of the dishes at a French banquet, or by
explaining why the trail of a woodcock is eatable. A
few sentences of “ Naturel” (natural history) are often
introduced into the description, and we find occasional
hints as to the use of birds in medicine, such as that the
blood of the partridge is good for sore eyes. Ancient
authors are regularly quoted, and pains are taken to
identify the birds of which they speak. Fabulous stories
are mentioned, though with due scepticism ; Belon does
not believe, for example, that the sparrowhawk is the
father of the cuckoo, nor that barnacle-geese are gene-
rated from floating wrecks (they have been seen, he tells
us, to lay eggs); nor that the chameleon feeds on air.

What we should now call orders of birds are indis-
tinctly recognised, but only as convenient headings. It
was far too early for any naturalist to inquire how there
come to be natural assemblages of birds, or why one
principle of arrangement is to be preferred to another.
Belon adopts Aristotle’s groups as far as they go; he
recognises the birds of prey, the swimming birds, and
the waders with long legs, joining with these last the
kingfisher and the bee-eater; his remaining groups are
the birds which nest on the ground, then a very miscel-
laneous group (crows, pigeons, parrots, &c.), which agree
only in being of fair size and nesting in any situation;
his last section consists of the songsters. Tradition com-
pelled Belon to put the bat among the nocturnal birds
of prey, but he did not really take it to be a bird.

In his introduction Belon gives on opposite pages
large figures of a human skeleton and that of a bird,

RONDELET 45

naming all the principal bones, and thus indicating
their homologies. This is an early and interesting
example of that comparative method which has since
proved so fertile.

Belon was much interested in the enrichment of
French gardens by new exotic species, and is said to
have introduced the cedar of Lebanon into western
Europe.

GUILLAUME RONDELET

1507-1566
Libri de Piscibus Marinis. Fol. Lugd. 1554.

Universe aquatilium Historie pars altera. Fol. Lugd. 1555.

Rondelet was professor of anatomy at Montpellier,
then a provincial capital, famous for its medical school.
It is only seven miles from the Mediterranean, whose
coasts are full in view from the celebrated Promenade
de Peyrou. In Rondelet’s day the sea-fisheries were
important, and offered good opportunities to an anatomist
who sought to enlarge biological knowledge. His repu-
tation as a naturalist attracted many students to Mont-
pellier ; among the number were Dalechamps, Clusius,
John Bauhin and L’Obel—a list of great distinction,
which might easily be enlarged.

With Rondelet, as with other writers of his day, fishes
include aquatic animals of every kind. In his own
mind he distinguished, as Aristotle had done long before,
the blood-holding (vertebrate) fishes from the bloodless
(invertebrate), but by treating all together in his anato-
mical account, he rendered most of his generalisations
unserviceable. Copious extracts from ancient writers
weary the reader, and show how imperfectly Rondelet
foresaw that his own observations were to lay the

46 THE NEW BIOLOGY

foundation of a new ichthyology, which would convert
the descriptions of Pliny and Alian into mere historical
curiosities. He discriminates and names such true fishes
as were known to him, and often describes in succession
several species which are now placed in the same genus
or the same family, such as the “ brames de mer” (sea-
breams), or the different kinds of Turdus, Raia, and
Galeus. The invention of the genus was ascribed by
Haller and Linnzus to Gesner, but it is probably as old
as natural history. Aristotle enumerates two or more
camels, eagles, kingfishers, tits, woodpeckers, wagtails,
thrushes, &c. What is modern is the use of the word
genus as a technical term, and the reference of every
species to its genus, verbal usages which came in
gradually, and were at length formally inculcated by
Linneus. Rondelet indicates groups more extensive
than genera, but without subordination or definition.
There are no synoptical tables, and the groups are mere
headings. Like other naturalists of that age, he was
content to reckon the whales as fishes, though he was
well aware of the differences between them. He
regularly noted the structure and arrangement of the
gills in every true fish that came before him.

In these two books nearly two hundred and fifty
species are described, most of them being figured, and
there is rarely a doubt as to the fish which is meant.
The modern names are regularly assigned to his figures
in the British Museum Catalogue of Fishes (1859-70).

Rondelet was of great use to Willughby and Ray
(infra, p. 112) and through them to later ichthyologists.
The task upon which all were engaged proved to be
one of unsuspected difficulty. Though Ray, Linneus,
Cuvier and other zoologists, the strongest of their time,
laboured at it, the end has never come in view. It

RONDELET 47

seems that the highly specialised and dominant group
of Teleostean fishes has become adapted in most intricate
ways to the exigencies of aquatic life, and that no
simple principle of division is likely to prove natural
here, any more than in the class of Birds. Ichthyolo-
gists, like ornithologists, can only remove this or that
blot, with little hope of complete success, even in the
distant future.

Yet another book on fishes was brought out nearly at
the same time with those of Belon and Rondelet, by
Hippolito Salviani (1514-1572), a physician of Rome,
whose work, Aquateium Animaliwm [Historia], dated
1554, was only completed in 1558, as the colophon
shows. The three authors were all physicians, and all
were patronised by Cardinal Tournon. Salviani’s book is
chiefly remarkable for its beautiful engravings on copper,
which in some copies are delicately coloured.

THE ENCYCLOPADIC NATURALISTS OF THE
RENAISSANCE

We must briefly notice a class of writers who were
highly esteemed in their day, though most of them did
little to advance natural history, because they relied
upon other aids than that first-hand study, which is
essential to lasting progress in the interpretation of
nature. Encyclopedic learning was the passion of
sixteenth century scholars, who loved to transcribe
copious extracts from ancient authors into their Adver-
saria in the hope of some day digesting them into books.
Zoology and botany were treated like history or
philology by writers who failed to perceive that Pliny
and Allian were by no means trustworthy witnesses on

48 THE NEW BIOLOGY

matters of biological fact. The encyclopedic naturalists
were far more eager to amass information than to sift it.
Their works are now and then languidly turned over by
some historian of science, who perhaps collects singular
fables as indications of the prevailing state of knowledge,
until at length he sweeps the whole away as futile,
remembering that obsolete encyclopedias, which reflect,
not the opinions of the age in which they were compiled,
but a medley of opinions of all preceding ages, are not
of much value, even as historical documents.

The best of the encyclopzedic naturalists of the Re-
naissance were Gesner and Aldrovandi. Gesner stands
high among early botanists, as we have elsewhere (supra,
p- 30) tried to show. But he was much else besides a
botanist, and would have claimed to be called a poly-
histor, z.e. a scholar who set himself to acquire and
expound all learning.

Gesner’s History of Animals} was written in Latin,
and appeared volume by volume from 1551 to 1587 , the
mammals, oviparous quadrupeds, birds, fishes and other
aquatic animals being treated in succession. A volume
on serpents and a description of the scorpion, which :
to have formed part of the insects, were not published
till after Gesner’s death. The whole work extended
to 4,500 folio pages, and was adorned by several hundred
woodeuts. So far as possible, each animal is described
under eight heads :—(1) names, in various languages ;
(2) native country, external characters, &c.; (3) mode
of life; (4) habits and instincts; (5) capture, rearing,
domestication, &c.; (6) uses as food; (7) uses as
‘medicine ; (8) literary and moral uses, historical allusions,
&c. The primary arrangement is, of course, Aris-
totelian, but with a number of changes for the worse;

‘Historia Animalium. 5 vols. Fol. Tiguri. 1551-87.

ENCYCLOPEDIC NATURALISTS OF RENAISSANCE 49

beyond this the animals are taken in alphabetical
order, though nearly allied forms are often grouped
about a type. There is no regular subordination of
groups, no precise nomenclature, no anatomical intro-
ductions; the figures are largely borrowed. It gives
some notion of the state of zoological knowledge in
the second half of the sixteenth century that Gesner
should have grouped the hippopotamus, whales, fishes,
mollusca, &. as aquatic animals, that the bat should be
described among the birds, and that the scorpion should
be represented as possessing elytra. The History was
republished, abridged, and translated, so that it must
have been highly esteemed.

Not only Gesner but almost all the naturalists of the
sixteenth century put the bat among the birds and the
whales (sometimes the seals and the hippopotamus
also) among the fishes, or at least in a group of aquatic
animals, though the more knowing showed that they were
aware of the differences which rendered such associa-
tions scientifically indefensible. It is surprising that
they hardly ever ventured to throw over the medieval
grouping and go back to Aristotle, whose name com-
manded so much respect. Wotton and Aldrovandi did
so in the case of the bats,! but not even Ray dared to
separate the whales from the fishes. What is perhaps
the last survival of such a grouping is to be found in
Artedi’s Ichthyologia (1738), which was edited by
Linneeus.

Less known to fame was Edward Wotton (1492-1555),
a London physician, who published a Latin treatise De
differentus anamalium (fol. Paris, 1552) nearly at the
same time with the first part of Gesner’s History.

1 Wotton treated the bats as mammals, Aldrovandi as intermediate between

mammals and birds; Aristotle seems to have hesitated between the two views.
D «

50 THE NEW BIOLOGY

Wotton methodised the zoology of Aristotle, and drew
up the first formal classification of animals. His book
is sagacious and careful, but dry. It was little read,
and exerted no appreciable influence upon the progress
of zoology.

Adam Lonicer (1528-1586), a physician and botanist
of Frankfort, published a Naturalis Historie Opus
Novum (2 vols. Fol. Francofurti. 1551), the largest
and best part of which is botanical. This work is more
remarkable for its longevity than for its quality; it was
continually re-edited, and only disappeared from the
book-market in the eighteenth century.

Ulysses Aldrovandi of Bologna (1522-1605) was, like
so many other early naturalists, a physician and botanist.
At first he pursued many different branches of study,
but by the advice of Rondelet selected zoology and
botany as his own special province. Aldrovandi was
director of the botanic garden of Bologna, which he had
largely helped to found. He was also a diligent col-
lector, and bequeathed a museum to his native city.
In old age he began to publish an extensive treatise on
animals, which was to form part of a still wider scheme.

John Jonston (1603-1675) was a weak successor to
Aldrovandi, from whom he borrowed largely. His
illustrated works enjoyed a great reputation, being
republished or translated many times. Jonston was of
Scotch descent, though born in Poland; he studied both
at Thorn and St. Andrews. To explain how this came
about would require a historical discussion, in which the
Wyclifites, Hussites and Moravians would all find a
place.

? Only the birds (Fol. Bononiz. 1599-1603) and the insects (1602) appeared
during Aldrovandi’s lifetime. The quadrupeds, viviparous and oviparous, the
serpents and dragons, the fishes and whales, the bloodless animals and the
Dendrologia were edited and published posthumously (Fol. Bononie. 1606-7).

SECTION II. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
DISTANT LANDS (EARLY TIMES TO THE
CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

Voyacexs of discovery go back to times whose history is
inextricably mixed with legend. Phcenician merchants
sailed over the Mediterranean, and beyond the pillars
of Hercules to the Fortunate Islands and the western
shores of Spain, bringing to Tyre and Sidon the products
of Arabia, Egypt and India, as well as of northern
countries rarely visited except by barbarian traders.
Herodotus, the first Greek historian, travelled in Persia,
Egypt and Scythia, and was able to gratify the curiosity
of his countrymen by telling them, among many things
of greater importance, about the crocodile of the Nile,
and the artificially impregnated date-palm of Babylon.
Ctesias, a Greek physician, who had lived at the court
of that Artaxerxes, whom Cyrus the younger tried to
dispossess, wrote accounts of Persia and India, in which
elephants, parrots and bamboos are noticed. Greek
armies were led by Alexander to the Punjab, returning
by the Indus and the Persian gulf. It is just possible
that from this last source of information Aristotle
learned what he knew about the anatomy of the ele-
phant, and how the Bactrian camel differed from the

Arabian.

52 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

In the narrative of the voyage of Nearchus (one
of Alexander’s generals) from the Indus to the Tigris,
mention is made of the tiger, of the cotton-plant and
of the use of cotton in weaving, of rice, of silk, of
the sugar-cane, of tortoise-shell, and of oriental spices
and drugs. The fleets of the Ptolemies made regular
trade-voyages to Arabia, tropical Africa and perhaps
to countries yet more remote. Ptolemy Philadelphus
set up a menagerie at Alexandria, in which elephants,
rhinoceroses, buffaloes and ostriches were kept. Aga-
tharcides, an Alexandrian scholar of the second century
B.C., described strange animals of Ethiopia, the giraffe,
the rhinoceros, the baboon, various monkeys and the
spotted hyzna. Theophrastus knew something about
the banyan-tree, the citron, the tamarind, which was
reported to fold up its leaflets at night, and the
thorny Mimosa of Egypt, whose leaves droop when
touched.

Under the Roman empire trade with distant countries
was perhaps as much hindered as encouraged by the
Roman passion for dominion. Such books as the
Natural History of Pliny show that opportunities of
enlarging geographical knowledge were not neglected,
Roman emperors sent expeditions to the shores of the
Baltic for the sake of amber, and to tropical Africa for
the sake of birds of rich plumage. Elephants, camelo-
pards and ostriches were exhibited and slain in the
circus. Ivory, silk, pearls, spices, dyes and drugs were
regularly imported.

During the long decline which followed the downfall
of the empire such knowledge as the ancients had
possessed about exotic animals and plants shrank to
a meagre stock of perverted recollections. Though the
elephant was kept in mind by the bestiaries and the

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 53

first book of Maccabees, it was often confounded with
the camel. Monkeys, lions, leopards and lynxes were
still well known.

Of the acquisitions made between the years 200 and
1000 a.p. none perhaps was more considerable than the
importation of the silkworm in the reign of Justinian.
Constantinople was during many centuries the great
European emporium of eastern wares.

The wars of Saracens and Christians did little for
geographical knowledge or industry to compensate for
the interruption of peaceful intercourse which they
created. In the thirteenth century the passionate zeal
which had stirred up so many Holy Wars died out,
but travel and exploration revived as the progressive
movement (see pp. 7, 9) gained strength. Towards
the end of the thirteenth century Marco Polo and his
companions reached China (Cathay, as it was then
called) by land, taking advantage of that relaxation of
restrictions which followed upon the conquests of the
Tartars. The barriers were soon restored, and China
became once more impenetrable. Elsewhere geographical
knowledge and commerce advanced steadily. Venice,
Genoa and Florence became enriched by eastern trade.
Dates, balsams and flax were regularly imported from
Egypt; the sugar-cane was planted in the islands of
the Mediterranean, and cotton in the south of Europe.
In the sixteenth century, and indeed long before, the
northern parts of Spain supplied Europe with whale-
bone and train-oil, sending their ships out into the
Atlantic to capture the Right Whale.

1We read however of an elephant sent to Charlemagne by Haroun-al-
Raschid, and of another given to our Henry III. by Louis IX. of France;
there is a tolerable though small figure of one in the Meditationes of Johannes

de Turrecremata, Rome, 1467. A giraffe was imported by the emperor
Frederick II. in the thirteenth century.

54 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

Few of the innumerable pilgrims to the Holy Land
brought home anything better than chance scraps of
information about the remarkable animals and plants
of Syria. Among the most enterprising was one of
the latest pilgrims, Bernard de Breydenbach, a canon
of Mayence, who travelled in Palestine and Arabia
during 1482 and following years. He wrote an account
of what he had seen,! which is illustrated by very
curious woodcuts. A painter named Remich made one
of the party, and drew several strange animals, among
which was a giraffe (“seraffa”); no earlier portrait of
this animal, taken from the life, is known. Breydenbach
was probably the first traveller whose descriptions and
figures were multiplied by the printing-press. Mena-
geries, containing remarkable foreign animals, now
began to be common ornaments of the courts of
Italian princes.

Here would come in order of time the great geo-
graphical discoveries of Vasco da Gama and Columbus.
We shall however defer this topic until we have tried
to show by two or three examples how the new spirit of
the Renaissance stirred up explorers to examine more
closely the natural products of countries less distant
from civilised Europe.

Pierre Belon, of whose life a sketch has already
been given (p. 40), visited the eastern end of the
Mediterranean during the years 1546-9. In 1553 he
published a little book called Les observations des
plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trowvées
en Grece, Asie, Judée, Hgypte, Arabie et autres pays
estranges, which was highly esteemed, passing through
several editions, and being translated into Latin by the

1Opusculum sanctarum peregrinationum, Mainz, 1486, often reprinted and

translated into several modern languages before 1500. Some beautiful manu-
script copies also exist.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 55

celebrated naturalist Clusius, as well as into German.
A portrait prefixed to the Latin translation shows Belon
as a strong and handsome man with short curly hair and
full beard; he was only thirty-two when he returned
from the east.

The Turks were then at the height of their power.
Belon, like Busbecq (p. 56), admired their hardihood
and temperance in this season of conquest and glory.
He describes the menagerie of the sultan, which was
kept in an ancient temple at Constantinople. Lions
were tied each to its own pillar ; sometimes they were
let loose. Besides lions there were wolves, onagers,
porcupines, bears and lynxes. Genets were kept in
the houses like cats. Belon says that the Turks loved
flowers, and were skilful in gardening. Parsley was
called macedonico in the market of Constantinople ;
hence perhaps the macédoine of modern cookery.
Smilax aspera and Tamus communis were used as
salads. The giraffe, buffalo, gazelle, chameleon and
Egyptian crocodiles are described, some of them being
figured. Belon refutes the popular fable that the
chameleon lives on air, but was induced to figure a
mummied serpent with wings and clawed feet, which,
he tells us, was able to fly from Arabia into Egypt.
Much to his surprise, he found the skin of a six-banded
armadillo, which must have come, he knew, from South
America, in the hands of a troop of wandering Turkish
drug-sellers ; he secured the specimen and figures it.

We find a particularly interesting description of
Crete. Belon begins by lamenting that the Greeks,
to whom the arts and learning owe so much, held not
a foot of ground as their own, the Turks dominating
the inland parts, and the Venetians the shores of what
had been the Greek empire. The ancient language was

56 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

still spoken ; though corrupt, it was, Belon thinks, more
similar to ancient Greek than the Italian dialects to
Latin. He notes some customs which still prevail in
Crete, such as the practice of sipping wine, but at the
same time quenching thirst with large draughts of
water. He did not fail to visit the ruins of ancient
cities, all of which the Cretans were inclined to call by
the celebrated name of Labyrinth. A particular account
is given of the mode of collecting the balsamic resin
called Ladanum, which was much esteemed by the
ancients, and of which Pliny had related a ridiculous
fable, viz. that it was combed out from the beards and
shaggy legs of goats which had browsed in the forests of
Arabia. There is a lengthy description of his discovery
of the parrot-wrasse (Scarus), which Aristotle had said
(wrongly, as it happens) to be the only fish that.
ruminates. The Cretan sheep and goat are described
and figured. Concerning the latter Belon makes two
startling remarks, viz. that its horns may be four cubits
long, and that the number of rings on the horns tells.
how many years the animal has lived.

In this way Belon goes on pleasantly from one
country to another, discussing with little method
animals, plants, useful arts, drugs, and the ruins of
ancient buildings. One heading runs thus :—‘ Modestie
des soldats tures, et d’un serpent nommé Jaculus, et de
Yoiseau nommé Onocratalus.” Many of the woodcuts
are fair, but the long-tailed ichneumon, whose tail is cut
off and shown separately above the body, makes us
smile.

Augier Ghislen de Busbecq (1522-1592) was a
Fleming, who was twice sent by the emperor as
ambassador to Soliman II. Historians have drawn
valuable information from his descriptions of the

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 57

Turks in the days when they threatened all Christen-
dom. Being not only learned, but urged by an
unbounded curiosity, Busbecq inquired into strange
facts of every kind. His love of gardening caused him
to send some plants, cultivated by the Turks but un-
familiar in Europe, to his correspondents in Vienna.
Gilles, in Latin Gillius' (1490-1554), was a naturalist
who made the same venture as Belon, and like him,
was unkindly treated by fortune, for his calamities.
hindered him from bringing home the fruits of his toil.
He was a native of Alby in Languedoc, who betook
himself to the study of the ancient naturalists, but
gained practical experience of zoological research by
examining the fishes of the Mediterranean and Adriatic.
He was patronised by a celebrated free-thinking bishop,
Armagnac, and commissioned by the king, Francis I,
to visit the Levant in quest of ancient or modern know-
ledge. His necessities were not duly provided for, and
he found himself left destitute in Asia Minor. All his
collections were lost, and he was compelled to enlist in
the Turkish army for the sake of a subsistence. At last
he made his escape to France (1550), and rejoined his
patron, now acardinal, at Rome. Before setting out on
his travels Gilles published Atlian in Latin, rearranging
his matter, and identifying the species where possible ;
after his return he wrote on the topography of Con-
stantinople. Among his publications is a description of
an elephant sent from Persia to the sultan. Gilles met
with it and its Hindoo mahout at Aleppo, where the
elephant died. He notes the gentleness of the animal,
1This Petrus Gillius must not be confounded with Petrus Gillius or Agidius

of Antwerp (1486?-1533), who was the friend of Erasmus and Sir Thomas.
More, and edited the first edition of the Utopia.

2 Blephanti Descriptio, missa ad R. cardinalem Armagnacum ex urbe Berrhaw
Syriaca, authore Petro Gillio, 8vo. Lyon. 1562.

58 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

supposed to be not more than four years old, and its
love of play. He easily refutes the belief that the
elephant had but one joint in its limbs. Finding two
live elephants at Constantinople, he measured the larger
one. With this insignificant contribution recommences
the study of the structure and natural history of the
elephant, interrupted for some nineteen centuries. The
same little book contains notes on the “marine elephant”
(hippopotamus), which also he saw alive at Constanti-
nople, the giraffe, and an ichneumon, which last he kept
alive for some time.

Siegmund von Herberstein, who visited Moscow in
1516-7 and again in 1526, as ambassador from the
emperors Maximilian and Charles V., described Russia
for the gratification of the curious." Among other things
he mentions some remarkable wild animals, the bison,
the elk, the ibex or some allied species, and the onager
or wild ass. He says of the Lithuanian bison that it
has a mane, long hair about the neck and shoulders and
a beard; the eye is large and fierce, as if on fire; the
horns are wide apart, and there is a hump on the back
(not a real hump, but only high withers) ; the animal
smells of musk.

Whatever Olaus Magnus (Magni or Stor) titular
archbishop of Upsala (b. 1490, d. 1557) may have been
as a describer of national customs and a collector of
folklore, he sinks to the medizeval level in his descriptions
of animals. His History of the Northern Nations?
tells of the glutton, which after gorging himself makes
ready for another meal by squeezing his body between
two trees, of the kraken, which is able to swallow ships,

? Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii, Fol. Vienna. 1549. Translated as
“*Notes upon Russia,” 2 vols., Hakluyt Soc. 1851-2.

? Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus. Fol. Rome. 1555,

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 59

of the sea-serpent a league and a half long, and of
swallows which pass the winter at the bottom of lakes
and rivers. Some of these fables long continued to
figure in natural history books.

The interest with which Europe received the announce-
ment of a new continent across the Atlantic was
heightened by the report that it was peopled by strange
animals and plants, unknown to ancient or modern
naturalists. The species of North America, it has since
been discovered, for the most part belong to genera or
families which occur in Europe or temperate Asia, but
the West Indian islands, Brazil and Mexico (and it was
these of which the Spanish navigators brought intelli-
gence) possess a far more peculiar fauna and flora.

On his return from his first voyage (1493) Columbus
exhibited to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, not
only six Indians waiting to be baptised, but live parrots
and a few stuffed animals. In subsequent voyages he
paid such attention to natural history as his troubled
and wandering life permitted The Decades of Peter
Martyr Anglerius? were a chief source of information
to the readers of Europe during the early years of
the sixteenth century. Anglerius had never crossed
the Atlantic, but his official position as chronicler of
Indian affairs and member of council for the Indies
made him acquainted with every new exploration. He

1Humboldt has remarked the closeness of Columbus’ observation of all
natural phenomena. Among other things he noted the solitary seed of
Podocarpus, an aberrant South American conifer. Hardly any American
explorer before Joseph de Acosta, he adds, showed any power of generalising
the facts of observation, except Columbus (Hxamen Critique, Vol. III,
pp. 20 foll.). The Letters of Columbus do not seem to me to bear out the
statement as to his frequent and close observation of natural objects.

?So named from his birth-place, Anghiera on Lake Maggiore.

3 De Orbe Novo Decades, Alcala, 1516. There is a translation into Italian
in the third volume of Ramusio.

60 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

had entertained in his own house Columbus, Sebastian
Cabot and other well-known navigators, and took a
lively interest in their enterprises. Moreover, he could
write from scanty materials interesting sketches of what
had been seen in the New World, and these sketches,
when collected into Decades, circulated far and wide.
He tells how Pope Leo X. liked to read them to his
sister and the cardinals.1 No marvel of the animal life
of America interested early explorers more than the
opossum, which figures in several narratives. Anglerius
describes it as a creature which had the snout of a fox,
the tail of a monkey, the ears of a bat, the hands of a
man and the feet of an ape. It climbed trees, and
carried its young in a pouch, like no other known
animal.

The first man to set down in writing something like
a connected account of the natural history of the New
World was Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes
(1478-1557). Oviedo had in his youth served as page
to Prince Juan, son of Ferdinand and Isabella. In 1513
he was sent out to America as inspector of mines, and
after this he served the crown in various capacities,
residing long in Hispaniola, of which he was alcalde.
On his retirement from foreign service he acted as
chronicler of the Indies.

Oviedo laboured during a great part of his life at a
General and Natural History of the Indies2 A
summary of this was published in 1526, and the first
part of the full history in 1535. The whole is now
accessible in print.

West Indian Mammals. We are told by Oviedo
that when Hispaniola (also called Hayti and St.

1Letter of Anglerius, Dec. 26, 1515.
® Historia general y natural de las Indias. Fol. Salamanca, 1535.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 61

Domingo) was first visited by Europeans, it contained
five animals (he means mammals), besides snakes, é&c.
Four of the five were called by Indian names, Hutia,
Chemi, Mohui, Cori, the fifth kind being the native dog.
It would require an intimate knowledge of the native
mammals, and especially of their quality as food, to
identify all of these by means of Oviedo’s descriptions,
for though he tells us which were good to eat, he says
little about teeth and claws, which are more serviceable
in the determination of species. Of the native dogs he
says that the Indians used to rear them in their houses,
but that at the time of writing none were left. They
were of all colours; some were smooth-haired, others
woolly like sheep. The ears were erect. The dogs of
the Indians were used in hunting, but were not equal to
those which had been brought from Spain. They were
dumb, and did not howl or bark when beaten.

The Tapir. Oviedo’s Danta or Beori (Indian name)
must be the tapir, but the description is very vague.
We are told that it was as big as a mule, that its skin
was dark, and that it had no horns. The flesh was
good to eat, and the feet delicious when boiled for
twenty-four hours. The animal was hunted with dogs,
and had to be hindered, if possible, from entering water,
where it became formidable.

The Sloth. According to Oviedo the sloth takes a
day to travel fifty paces. Its legs cannot support its
weight, and the body trails on the ground. It climbs
trees, gripping the boughs with its long claws, and sings
by night, uttering six notes in regular descending order.
It will remain on a tree-top for many days together, and
no one knows what it feeds on, but since it keeps its
head turned towards the wind, Oviedo thinks that it
must live on air. Such tales as these were often repeated

62 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

by naturalists, some of whom, like Ulloa, had seen a
live sloth, while others, like Buffon, had not. Buffon
severely criticises Nature for turning out a creature so
ill-equipped and so wretched. At last Charles Waterton
showed that the sloth is by no means the pitiable object
which Buffon and his forerunners had painted; it is in
all respects well-adapted to its mode of life, and only
becomes grotesque or unhappy when removed from its
accustomed haunts, and hindered from using its natural
powers.

The Anteater. Of the ant-bear, as he calls it, Oviedo
says that it has the skin of a bear, a long snout and no
tail! Itis defenceless, though it sometimes bites (Oviedo
seems not to be aware that the anteater has no teeth).
It feeds on ants (really on termites), which it manages
to secure in spite of the strength of their habitations.
In South America, Oviedo explains, the ant-hills are as
high as a man, and being alternately moistened by rain
and baked by the sun, become as hard as stone. The
entrance is close to the ground, and so small as to admit
nothing bigger than an ant. But the ant-bear finds
cracks on the surface of the fortress, into which it inserts
its tongue ; by continual licking these are widened more
and more until an effective breach is made. He knows
nothing of the use of the great claws in demolishing an
ant-hill, or in self-defence.

The Manatee. Oviedo describes this animal as a fish,
though he is aware that it has a leathery, not a scaly,
skin, and teats for suckling its young.

Birds. Oviedo gives Spanish names to the birds of
the West Indies and South America, entertaining little
suspicion that they were distinguished by peculiarities
more important than differences of size or colour. Lively
descriptions are met with in his pages, as when he says

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 63

of the humming-birds that they are no bigger than the
top of the thumb, and when plucked, only half as big ;
that they fly too fast for the movements of the wings
to be followed by the eye, and when first seen are taken
for hornets. Nest and bird together, he goes on, may
weigh no more than twenty-four grains, while the feet
and claws are as delicate as in the miniatures of an
illuminated prayer-book. The plumage is of all gay
colours, such as green and gold, and the bill is as fine
as a needle. Though so small, they are bold enough to
fly at the eyes of anyone who tries to plunder their
nests. It is easy to imagine the delight with which
such particulars were read for the first time.

American Plants. Many edible and medicinal plants
are described, among the rest, maize, cassava, the pine-
apple and the prickly pear. We are told of the
singular efficacy of a prickly pear poultice in curing
fractured limbs, and of the edible fruit. The carmine
colouring matter is also noticed, but no mention is made
of the cochineal insect. India-rubber balls are said to
be used in an Indian game.?

Oviedo’s figures of animals and plants are very rude,
but much allowance must be made for the clumsiness of
the wood-engraver.? Maize, pine-apple, cacti, &c. are
represented for the first time in a printed book; the
manatee is one of the few animals figured.

1This last I quote from Darmstidter’s Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften,
having failed to verify his reference, or to discover the passage in the enormous
and unindexed volumes of the Madrid edition of Oviedo.

The first mention of a lead-pencil occurs in Gesner’s little book on fossils
(supra, p. 30), but the first mention of india-rubber as useful for erasing
pencil marks is as late as 1770 (see Thorpe’s Priestley, p. 72).

2This clumsiness will strike any reader who recollects the high quality of
the wood-engraving executed in Germany, Holland and Flanders during the
first quarter of the sixteenth century ; Italy and France were not far behind.
The reproductions of Oviedo’s figures in Ramusio are much better executed
than the originals.

64 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

As a naturalist (I have not read his civil history)
Oviedo is not considerable. He does not claim to
possess any special gifts, training or experience ; indeed
we may say that in his time there was no instance of a
man who confined himself to so narrow a department of
learning as natural history. He writes merely as one
who was well acquainted with tropical America, had
observed the things about him, and had noted all that
was told him. Pliny and Albertus Magnus were still
authorities, while the Elucidarius and the Ortus
Sanitatis, though packed with fables, furnished a large
part of the natural knowledge of the reading public.
But the spirit of enlarged curiosity was abroad, and
although Oviedo shared many beliefs at which we cannot
but smile, he had the thirst for knowledge which pro-
perly belongs to a contemporary of Copernicus and
Regiomontanus, of Brunfels and Bock, of Leonardo da
Vinci and Albert Durer, of Erasmus and Sir Thomas
More. Oviedo exhibits the simplicity of Herodotus;
Acosta, who comes next before us, possesses the higher
quality of thoughtfulness ; exactness we must not expect
for another hundred years or more.

Acosta’s Natural and Moral History of the Indies,
a concise but interesting sketch of the natural pheno-
mena, useful products and native tribes of America, was
first published in Latin at Salamanca in 1588. It was
so well received that it was quickly translated into
Spanish, with large additions. The History, thus recast,
was three times reprinted in Spain, and translated into
Italian, Dutch, French, German and English.’

The author, Joseph de Acosta, was a Jesuit father, who
had sailed to Cartagena in 1570, being then about thirty

1Grimston’s translation of 1605 has been reprinted, with introduction and
notes by the Hakluyt Society, 1880.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 65

years of age. He was set over the Jesuit missionary
stations in Peru, and resided for many years at their
chief settlement, Juli, on Lake Titicaca, from which he
ultimately removed to Lima. He sailed to Mexico in
1583, and returned to Spain in 1587. His last years
were spent at Valladolid and Salamanca, where he
presided over Jesuit colleges, and he died at Salamanca
in 1600.

Acosta sets out by proving that the same sky which
over-arches Europe extends all the way to America.
The glorious Chrysostom had indeed maintained a
contrary opinion, but Acosta had sailed as far as the
tropic of Capricorn, and seen the northern constellations
gradually sink as the southern cross rose. He explains
the motion of the heavenly bodies by supposing that the
star-sphere revolves about the immovable, spherical
earth, just what his contemporary, Tycho Brahe had
taught in the same year (1588).

Another preliminary question which Acosta feels
bound to discuss is the question how America became
peopled. Since all men are descended from Adam, the
first human inhabitants of the New World must have
been derived from the eastern hemisphere. They could
not have crossed the ocean, for they had no compass.
But the tribes of men are only part of the problem;
America has its animals also, some of them large and
ferocious. Saint Augustine? had long before pointed
out that the presence of such animals in islands is
a great difficulty; he thought it possible that they
might either have swum across from the mainland, or
sprung out of the earth, or even have been carried
across by those who took delight in hunting. Acosta
rejects all these explanations; he cannot suppose that

1 De Crvitate, lib. XVI, cap. vii.
E

66 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

animals could swim across the Atlantic, nor would men
have tried to carry fierce beasts across in ships, nor does
he think it conformable to nature and the government
established by God that lions, tigers and wolves should
be engendered of the earth, like rats, frogs, bees and
other imperfect creatures. His own solution is much
more probable than any of the alternatives of Augustine,
viz., that the continents of the Old and New Worlds
meet or nearly so, perhaps towards the north pole,
where the maps of Acosta’s day showed a great
widening-out of America.

In another place Acosta shows that those who main-
tain that the quadrupeds now peculiar to America were
created there are at variance with the history of the
creation and the deluge. For why should it have been
necessary to preserve the animals in the ark, if they
could be created anew as required, and how could the
sacred history affirm that all was made and finished in
six days, if other animals of high grade were still to be
created? We are bound therefore to suppose that the
peculiar animals of America, such as the alpaca and
the llama, came from the Old World. Perhaps all the
animals dispersed gradually after the subsidence of the
deluge, when such as found countries well suited to
their mode of life survived ; the rest perished. In the
end every region became populated by animals well
adapted to the local conditions, and not found else-
where.

Every race, he goes on, not only of animals but of
men, shows peculiarities which are not essential, but
accidental, differences of colour, stature and so forth;
some apes have tails, some none; some sheep are short-
haired (bare, Acosta says), others fleecy ; some are
long-necked, others short-necked. But such “acci-

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 67

dental” differences can never, he thinks, account for the
“essential” differences between the animals of America
and those of Europe.

It may be doubted whether any speculator who
accepted the literal truth of the book of Genesis could
have framed a better explanation of the observed facts.

Acosta smiles at Aristotle and other ancient philo-
sophers, who had taught that the torrid zone was un-
inhabitable by reason of its heat. I have lived there
a long time, he said, and found it very pleasant. Only
after much learned disquisition does he bring out one
very material fact. Equatorial America is traversed by
one of the loftiest mountain-ranges in the world, and
Acosta spent most of his time in Peru at a greater
elevation than the highest summits of the Pyrenees.
But even the shores of equatorial America are habitable,
as he shows.

His discussion of the trade-winds is based upon solid
facts, and his explanation is quite tolerable, though he
is of course wrong in attributing them to the diurnal
motion of the celestial spheres, which carry the atmo-
sphere round with them.

Certain plants and animals of Peru and Mexico are
described briefly, especially such as are important to
man. We miss some remarkable features of the flora
and fauna; there is, for example, no mention of the
great cactuses, nor of the many singular water-birds
of the mountain-lakes, such as Lake Titicaca; nor of
opossums, which abound, not in the mountains (most
familiar to Acosta), but in the wooded plains; the
condor is dismissed in a few words. Acosta would have
written a very big book if he had told all that he knew.

The notices of maize, potatoes, cassava, tomatoes,
bananas, cotton, and pine-apples we may pass by as long

68 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

familiar. Of cacao (our cocoa) Acosta says that it was
much used in Mexico for the making of chocolate, which
had been a favourite drink long before the arrival of the
Spaniards; it was not grown in Mexico, but imported
from Central America; cocoa-seed passed as money
among the Indians. Chili peppers (Capsicum) were
a favourite condiment, added to many dishes. The
leaves of the Peruvian coca (Erythroxylon) were chewed
as a stimulant, like the betel of equatorial Asia. The
Mexican pulque, the fermented juice of the agave, is
described. Prickly pears and the cochineal which is
found on them, the iron-wood which sinks in water, and
the brazil-wood used in dyeing are among the curiosities
of which Acosta speaks. The Indians grew pulse,
whether native or introduced from Europe Acosta does
not know. Ginger had been already brought from the
East Indies to Hispaniola, where it multiplied greatly,
and the sugar-cane was extensively planted in Peru,
Mexico and the West Indian Islands; the canes were
crushed by machinery.

In the passion-flower people found emblems of the
crucifixion ; Acosta remarks that they were not wholly
wrong, but that some piety is required to believe it all.

Monkeys. Acosta says that he saw on the isthmus of
Panama monkeys tying themselves together by their
tails for the purpose of crossing a river. This story,
retold by Ulloa,’ who gives an engraving of the monkey-
chain, has been repeated in many popular books of
natural history. Humboldt? says that though he had
opportunities of observing thousands of the howler-
monkey, which is named as forming a chain, he places
no confidence in such tales.

? Viage a la America meridional. Madrid. 1748. Vol. I, pp. 144-9.
? Personal Narrative, Eng. Trans., Vol. II, p. 264.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 69

Puma. Of the puma or American lion Acosta says
that it is not so furious as it appears in pictures.

Llamas and Alpacas. These he considers to be a
kind of sheep. He praises them as of great profit
and small charge, for they yield both wool and meat,
and carry burdens without either saddle or oats; they
are sheep and asses combined. He speaks of their being
hunted by a thousand or more hunters at a time, and
also of their being lassoed with lines and plummets of
lead. The vicuna he compares to a wild goat, but says
elsewhere that it cannot be really a goat, for it has no
horns.

Manatee. This he saw in the Windward Islands,
and describes it as a strange kind of fish, if we may call
it a fish, for it brings forth its young alive and suckles
them. The flesh was so like veal that he had scruples
about eating it on a Friday.

Of other quadrupeds he mentions the peccary, tapir,
armadillo, chinchilla, guinea-pig and three-toed sloth,
but has nothing interesting to tell about them.

Humming-birds. Acosta often doubted as he
watched them whether they might not be bees or
butterflies.

Flying-fishes. He saw flying-fishes leaping into the
air to avoid the pursuit of the dorado. One fell on his
ship, and he examined its wings, which he thought to
resemble linen cloth or parchment.

Acosta saw the guano islands, and learned that guano
is a valuable fertiliser. He describes from his own
experience the symptoms of mountain-sickness.

It does not belong to our undertaking to quote
interesting facts, of which there are many, concerning
the Incas of Peru, or the ancient civilisation of Mexico.
Enough has already been extracted to show how valuable

70 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

in Acosta’s own day must have been the observations of
a man of his wide experience, furnished too with a
candid and inquiring mind.

We must notice much more briefly the effects of the
discoveries in tropical Asia. Here peculiarities of
situation, climate, population and history rendered the
new acquisitions of geographical knowledge far less
important, at least for a time. In the days when
there was no Suez canal the Hast Indies were about
three times as distant from western Hurope as Mexico
or Peru, which is one reason for the comparative
slowness of eastern exploration. In America vast tracts
of land enjoy a temperate climate, and bear plants
which thrive in Europe, but European settlers cannot
permanently establish themselves in the Hast Indies,
and tropical plants are unable to endure the cold
of our winters. The native races of America were
numerically weak, little advanced in the practical arts,
and unable to resist European arms; the nations of
Eastern Asia on the other hand were populous and
capable of an effectual defence; it proved to be a far
harder task to explore the East than to conquer the
West. Lastly, the Hast Indies had been long though
most imperfectly known, through conquering armies,
the reports of travellers, and especially through traders ;
in America (especially in South America and Mexico)
almost everything was new.

Thus it happened that the discovery of a new world
across the Atlantic immediately created a thirst for
selfish acquisition, accompanied by a far weaker but
nevertheless invaluable impulse to learn all that could
be learned about the strange new lands. New settling
grounds were opened to the Spaniards, the Portuguese,
the French, and ultimately, with far greater results, to

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 71

the English. Of smaller but considerable importance
was the introduction of new food-plants to Europe. On
the other hand the discovery of a sea-route to India did
little more at first than to throw a profitable foreign
trade into the hands successively of the Portuguese, the
Spaniards, the Dutch and the English. The conquest
of America at once began to enlarge the bounds of
natural history, but it was long before really valuable
knowledge of this sort was brought from Asia. Magel-
lan and his companions were able to see with their own
eyes the nutmeg-tree and the clove-tree of the Moluccas,
the camphor-tree of Borneo, cinnamon-trees, ginger,
sago-palms and bananas. A little later Garcias ab
Horto and his pupil Christobal Acosta wrote treatises
on the drugs of India, but it was not till the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries that the Dutch naturalists
began to publish methodical treatises on the natural
history of India and the Malay archipelago, while the
British contributions are of still more modern date.
The new food-plants brought over from America
(potato, maize, Jerusalem artichoke and probably the
haricot') made a very important addition to the
resources of Europe. From America too came many
ornamental plants, capable of cultivation in our gardens.
A few tropical species from Brazil, Peru, Chili or the
West Indies, were cultivated in European greenhouses,
which were however rare and costly luxuries till the
eighteenth century was far advanced ; among these the
passion-flower and the sensitive plant excited particular
interest. But for nearly three hundred years hardly
any plants from the Far East were cultivated in Europe.

1The origin of the French bean and the scarlet runner, which are both
haricots, has not been fully cleared up. See De Candolle’s Cultivated Plante.

72 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

CLUSIUS, CONSIDERED AS A STUDENT OF EXOTIC
NATURAL HISTORY

Charles de L’Escluse, better known by his Latin
name of Clusius (1526-1609), was a Fleming, who made
it one of the occupations of his long and busy life to
translate and publish the narratives of travellers and
collectors in distant lands. He had studied in several
universities, pursued all the principal branches of learn-
ing then cultivated, and searched the wilder parts of
western and central Europe for rare plants. He had
lived at Montpellier in the house of the eminent
naturalist Rondelet, and had been encouraged by him
to devote himself to botany and zoology, had directed
the imperial botanic garden in Vienna, and had been
the intimate associate of L’Obel and Dodoens, besides
keeping up a correspondence with Busbecq, Gesner and
many other men of note. During the latter half of his
life he was the great centre of botanical information.
Serious troubles, arising partly from his Protestant
faith, and partly from an extraordinary proneness to
fracture and dislocation of the limbs, did not spoil his
power of work. His last years were spent in a quiet
professorship at Leyden.

The two books cited} contain the most important
results of the labours of Clusius. Here we can read
the accounts which early Spanish or Portuguese travellers
and residents in the Kast or West Indies had given of
the fruit-eating bat, three-banded and six-banded arma-
dillos, the sloth and pangolin, the sperm-whale, the
manatee, the cassowary, dodo and penguin, humming-

?Rariorum Plantarum Historia. Fol. Antwerp. 1601. Ezoticorum libri
decem, quibus animalium, plantarum, aromatum, aliorumque peregrinorum
fructuum historie describuntur: item Petri Bellonii observationes, eodem Car.
Clusiz interprete. Fol. Antwerp. 1605.

CLUSIUS 73

birds and birds of Paradise, the chimera, diodon,
tetrodon and ostracion, the king-crab and gorgonia,
the banyan, mace, nutmeg, spice-clove, cinnamon,
pepper, lac, the Egyptian lotus (Nelumbium), the coco-
nut, pine-apple, vanilla, arnotto, capsicum, copal and
tobacco, besides foreign drugs, such as aloes, assafetida,
sarsaparilla, balsam of tolu, castor-oil and opium. His
descriptions are often accompanied by woodcuts, which
give a fair notion of the objects.

The diligence of Clusius was often rewarded by un-
expected and highly curious facts. In his last years
especially, residence in Holland, then beginning to send
out ships to the Far Hast, gave him excellent oppor-
tunities of collecting information, but he had been long
before known throughout Europe as a man learned in
every branch of natural history. A Portuguese physician,
Christobal Acosta, who had resided at Goa, published
a description of the sensitive plant, which Clusius trans-
lated, adding a figure taken from a dried specimen
brought by the Earl of Cumberland from the island
“D. Joannis a portu nuncupata.”? Another time he
was disappointed by the death at sea of a live sloth,
shipped to Amsterdam, but managed to draw or procure
a drawing of the carcase; which he helped out by the
description of Oviedo; it is not surprising that his
figure is hardly recognisable. For the sperm-whale he
had to trust to a figure given by a Spanish friar (in
a catechism!) and to a drawing of a specimen cast up
on the Dutch coast.2, A squadron of eight ships, com-
manded by Van Neck, sailed from Holland to the Hast

1This island was Cuba, named by Columbus after the son of Ferdinand and
Isabella, the infante Juan.

2The same whale, apparently, reappears in Visscher’s Piscium Vive Icones
(1634) and in Jonston (De Piscibus et Cetis, 1650, pl. XLI), but the point of
view differs a little from that of Clusius’ figure.

74 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS

Indies in 1598, conquered the Mauritius from the
Portuguese, and renamed it after their own Prince
Maurice. The narrative of the voyage, published in
1601, makes mention for the first time of the dodo, of
which a live specimen was brought home. Clusius was
able to copy a sketch made on board, and also to
describe a dodo’s foot preserved at Leyden. An
apothecary of Leyden possessed the skin of a pangolin,
which Clusius figures under the name of “ Lacertus
peregrinus spinosus.” Though he calls it a lizard, he
mentions that some hairs were found on the body; it
was not yet known that a few scattered hairs are the
infallible mark of a mammal. In the posthumous
Cure posteriores (1611) he tells how Johannes van
Ufele, a traveller in Brazil, showed him a book of
pictures of Brazilian animals and plants, coloured after
nature, and copied for him the drawings of the male
and female papaw, which are reproduced as woodcuts.
Clusius helped to spread the potato-plant in Flanders,
Austria and Germany ; the question of the first intro-
duction of the plant into Europe, about which much
has been written, is too complicated for discussion in
this place.1 In co-operation with Busbecq and others,
he made the horse-chestnut, the lilac, the mock-orange,
the tulip and the common laurel, then called ‘the plum
of Trebizond,” known to the gardeners of Europe.

The scientific gain which accrued from the multitude of
new species was not really so great as it appeared to be.
So vast and sudden an accession of facts overpowered
rather than strengthened the infant studies of zoologists
and botanists. Until the Systema Nature of Linnzus

1The facts are recited by Dr. Daydon Jackson in the Gardener’s Chronicle,
Mar. 17 and 24, 1900.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 75

appeared naturalists had not even pigeon-holes ready to
receive the new species. Ray, in the generation next
before Linnzeus, found it impossible to arrange the new
fishes and plants which poured in from America alone.
Even the subject of geographical distribution, though
more manageable than most branches of biological
inquiry, could not be investigated to real profit. Hurope
was as ill-prepared to grasp the new opportunities of
enlarging the knowledge of terrestrial life as politically
and morally ill-prepared to use her conquests in Mexico
and Peru to the lasting advantage of mankind. The
naturalists of Europe were untrained, and training was
hardly to be had. Here and there a man like Swam-
merdam might show how fruitful is the close study of a
few well-chosen animals and plants, but the lesson was
little heeded. Collectors went on loading their cabinets
and folios with ill-described and ill-understood objects,
seldom attempting close comparisons of distinct forms,
or investigating internal structure, or framing instructive
generalisations. It was not till the age of Buffon that
comprehensive and daring questions were raised in
earnest, and that the new sciences of geology and palz-
ontology began to enforce the pregnant thought that
facts unintelligible on the theory of sudden creation
might receive an explanation from long-continued
development. A new race of travellers (Pallas, Hum-
boldt, Robert Brown and Darwin) appeared, who cared
less about making collections than about the acquisition
of new ideas and the solution of problems. Even then
it was only the few who could restrain the passion for
mere acquisition. The infinite wealth of natural facts is
to this day an impediment to all naturalists except the
few who are content to remain ignorant of many things
in order that they may learn what is best worth knowing.

SECTION III. SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATUR.
ALISTS AND A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH
AGRICULTURIST

WILLIAM TURNER
1510 2-1568

Libellus de re herbaria novus. 4to. Lond. 1538. Reprinted in facsimile,
with notes and life, by B. Daydon Jackson, 1877.

Avium precipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est,
brevis et succincta historia. 8vo. Colonie, 1544, English translation by
A. H. Evans. 8vo. Camb. 1903. :

A New Herball, etc., Fol. Lond. 1551. The second part. Fol. Collen
(Cologne). 1562. The third part. Fol. Lond. 1568.

ENGLISHMEN took no part in the revival of botany and
zoology, any more than in the invention of printing,
engraving and other useful arts, but were during many
years content to imitate as well as they could the
example of more advanced countries. Such backward-
ness might be attributed to intellectual apathy, were it
not for the great things accomplished by Englishmen in
the same age. The maintenance of the first place
among the Protestant powers, the establishment of a
maritime strength able to contend with Spain in all
seas, and the glorious Elizabethan literature sufficiently
attest the vigour of our forefathers during that memor-
able time.

At last Englishmen began, one by one, to study the
natural productions of their own country. It was long

TURNER 77

before any of them achieved eminence; John Ray, in
the latter half of the seventeenth century, was the first
who could be compared with the best naturalists of
Flanders, Germany and Switzerland.

Turner was a fellow of a Cambridge college, who had,
under the influence of Ridley and Latimer, become a
stout Protestant. While still at the university he
studied botany, and put forth his Lxbellus, which gives
the Greek, Latin and English names of all the plants
which he knew. ‘As yet,” he explains, “ther was no
Englishe herbal but one, al full of unlearned cacographies
and falselye naming of herbes” (the Great Herbal).
He was soon afterwards imprisoned for preaching
without a licence. When set free he went abroad,
studied botany and medicine under Luke Ghini at
Bologna, visited Gesner at Zurich, and botanised along
the Rhine. On the accession of our Edward VI. he
returned to England, and found employment as chap-
lain, physician and botanist. He was made dean of
Wells in 1550, but was forced to flee again to the con-
tinent on Mary’s accession. At her death he recovered
his deanery, but fell into trouble again in 1564, being
suspended for nonconformity in the use of vestments.
He died in London in 1568.

Turner’s literary activity was chiefly exhibited in
religious controversy. His Herball, though now inter-
esting to the student of the English language, did
nothing for scientific botany. The arrangement is
alphabetical, under the Latin or Greek names, much
space is devoted to the virtues and properties of the
plants, and more than three-quarters of the figures are
borrowed from Fuchs. Turner’s best work in natural
history was his history of birds. The primary object of
this book was the determination of the birds named by

78 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

Aristotle and Pliny, but its whole value lies in the
observations made in England. “It is not too much to
say” (we quote from Mr. Evans) “that almost every
page bears witness to a personal knowledge of the
subject, which would be distinctly creditable even to a
modern ornithologist.” The following passages, quoted
from Myr. Evans’ translation, show Turner at his best :—

“There is a certain bird which Englishmen call
Creeper, that is Climber, for it always climbs about on
trees: this I believe to be the Certhia. It is a little
bigger than the Regulus, having a whitish breast, the
other parts dull brown, but varied with black spots; its
note is sharp, its beak is slender and is slightly hooked
towards the tip ; it never rests, but is for ever climbing
up the trunks of trees after the manner of the Wood-
peckers, and it eats grubs, picking them from the bark.”

““T know two sorts of Kites, the greater and the less;
the greater is in colour nearly rufous, and in England is
abundant and remarkably rapacious. This kind is wont
to snatch food out of children’s hands, in our cities and
towns. The other kind is smaller, blacker, and more
rarely haunts cities. This I do not remember to have
seen in England, though in Germany most frequently.”

JOHN GERARD

1545-1612
Herball, or Generall History of Plantes. Fol. Lond. 1597.

The memory of Gerard, the English botanist of the
period who is most read and quoted, is tarnished by
unscrupulous borrowing. His Herball was re-edited by
Thomas Johnson, a London apothecary, who greatly
extended and improved it, insomuch that Ray called

GERARD 79

this edition (Fol. Lond. 1633) “Gerardus emaculatus,”
a.€. cleansed from blots. Johnson admits that Gerard
was incompetent, and that his herbal was an elaborate
plagiarism; the story has often been told in detail.

Gerard is useful to the botanist and gardener, because
he tells us what plants were cultivated in English
gardens at the time when he wrote. In turning over
such books as Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis, which give
the countries from which our garden exotics come, and
the year of first introduction, we continually meet with
the date 1597, which means that our first knowledge
of the plant as an English garden-flower is drawn from
Gerard.

JOHN CAIUS

1510-1573

De Canibus Britannicis. 8vo. Lond. 1570. An English translation (*‘ Of
Englishe Dogges”) was made by Abraham Fleming, student (4to. Lond.
1576).

This account of the Dogs of Britain, together with
chapters on rare animals and plants, on Caius’ own
books, and on the pronunciation of Greek and Latin,
form a small book, of which the dogs occupy only
twenty-six pages and a table of breeds.

John Caius (the name is supposed to be a Latinised
form of Kay) is now best known as the second founder
of a Cambridge college. In his lifetime he was renowned
as a physician, who served in succession Edward the
Sixth, Mary and Elizabeth, and wrote what is con-
sidered the best contemporary account of the sweating

sickness.”

1Dr. Daydon Jackson says (Dict. Nat. Biog.) that nearly all Gerard’s figures
are taken from the Hicones of Tabernemontanus ; only sixteen are original.

2A Boke or Counseill against the Disease commonly called the Sweate or
Sweating Sickness. 8vo. Lond. 1552.

80 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

It is of interest to note that after completing his
Cambridge course he had studied anatomy at Padua
under Vesalius.

The treatise on the Dogs of Britain was written for
Conrad Gesner, who would have printed it at once, had
not Caius demanded time for revision. Meanwhile
Gesner died, and in the end Caius printed his little book
independently.

He gives a slight and amusing account of the dogs
known in the time of Queen Elizabeth, supplying such
information as a country gentleman fond of field-sports
might pour out in the course of conversation.

The table of British dogs is here quoted in a simplified
form :—

First come the Generosi, or well-bred dogs :—

VENATICI (hunting dogs) Terrare (terrier).
Harier (harrier).
Bludhunde (bloodhound).
Gasehunde (greyhound).
Leviner or lyemmer.
Tumbler.
AUCcUPATORII (fowling dogs) Spainel (spaniel).
Setter.
Water-spainel or fynder.
DELIcATI (pet dogs) Spainel-gentle or comforter.

The lower-class dogs follow :—
Rustici (farm dogs) Shepherdes dogge(sheep-dog).
: Mastive or bandedogge.

DEGENERES (mongrels) Wappe.
Turnspete.
Danser.
The following names of dogs occur in the text, but not
in the table :—otter-hound, lurcher, brach ; the bull-dog,
beagle, pointer and retriever are not mentioned in either.

CAIUS 81

The bloodhound was in Caius’ day regularly employed
in tracking cattle-lifters. Hector Boece (1527) says :-—
“the samin ar richt frequent and rife on the bordouris of
Ingland and Scotland.”

The gasehound or gazehound has been supposed to
be an old English greyhound,’ which has perhaps dis-
appeared by the steady selection of improved varieties.
Caius tells us that it sought its prey by sight, not by
scent, that it was more used in the northern than in the
southern counties, and more in open country than in
woodlands ; lastly, that it was more often followed on
horseback than on foot.

The lyemmer, lumer, or lume-hound (Fr. lumier) was a
dog led in a lyam, or leash.

The tumbler, according to Caius, was known by
its trick of turning suddenly and seizing its prey in the
mouth of the burrow. He speaks of its artfulness in
giving no warning. The tumbler was smaller and
slenderer than the harrier, and had more erect ears.
Paulinus (Cynographia curiosa, 1685) and Riedel
(Tabula generalis, 1780-4) identify the tumbler with
the dachshund.

Of the water-spaniel Caius says that it had long, curly
hair, and was used to recover birds hit with the cross-
bow,? or darts which had missed their mark. The water-
spaniel was known to Bewick, who gives a figure of it,
but has now been completely replaced by the retriever.
(See below.)

The spaniel-gentle or comforter was distinguished
from the Maltese dog, which was very small. Sully used
to tell how he found the effeminate Valois, Henri III.,

1 Caius’ Latin name for the gazehound, Vertragus or Vertagus, survives in
the modern French vautre, a boar-hound.
2The Latin word is scorpio, which Fleming mistranslated venomous worm, u

blunder which has been repeated in some recent books.
F

82 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

with his sword by his side, a cape about his shoulders, a
little flat cap on his head, and a basket hanging from his
neck, in which were two or three dogs no bigger than
your fist. The comforter is mentioned in Bewick’s
Quadrupeds.

The name of bandog for the mastiff implies that it
was often tied up. Caius calls it “villaticus seu cate-
narius.” The mastiff was used to guard flocks, to hunt
the wild boar, to keep swine from straying, to bait bulls,
and to draw water from wells; it was also made into
a beast of burden, or chained up as a watch-dog. The
loyalty of mastiffs is praised, and we are expected to
believe that they were so intelligent as to gather the
embers together with their paws, so as to keep the
fire from going out, or to heap ashes over them when
the flame was too fierce. Bewick’s bandog was a small
mastiff.

Caius’ mongrels were dogs of no particular breed,
which had been taught to bark at strangers, to turn
spits, or to dance to a tune.

Wappe or wappet is the name of a mongrel kept for
giving warning by its bark. Caius derives wappe from
wau (our bow-wow?).

The turnspit had a long body and crooked legs,
but these peculiarities are found in dogs of more than
one breed. Bewick (1790) still retains the turnspit
among the British dogs, but says that its services were
little valued.

We shall notice next the omissions from Caius’ table,
passing over the otter-hound, which, though not included
in the table, is mentioned in the text as a dog that
pursues the otter.

The lurcher (“canis furax” of Caius) was, he says,
a dog that hunted rabbits by scent and did not bark ; it

CAIUS 83

was used by night, probably by poachers. Youatt says
that the original lurcher was a cross between the grey-
hound and the sheep-dog.

The brach has been defined as a deerhound (Nares’
Glossary) or any dog that hunts by scent ; according to
Caius, brach was not the name of a breed, but of a
hunting bitch.

The four dogs which follow are neither named nor
described in The Dogs of Britain.

There is no hint of a bull-dog, and in Caius’ day bulls
were baited by mastiffs. The poet Gay, who had
written on rural sports, speaks in his Fables (1726),
not of the bull and the bull-dog, but of the bull and the
mastiff.*

The pointer is believed to have been unknown in
England until 1688; no such dog is mentioned by
Caius. Darwin? says that the English pointer changed
greatly during the hundred years before 1859, chiefly
in consequence of crosses with the fox-hound.

The beagle was perhaps reckoned by Caius as a
harrier.

The retriever is believed to be a cross-breed, first
produced in the nineteenth century. The name how-
ever is old. Juliana Bernes (Book of St. Albans, 1486)
says :—“‘if ye have a chastysed spanyell that wyl be
rebuked and is a retriever,” &c.

Caius has not a word to say about the origin of
the breeds of dogs. When such questions were raised,
in the eighteenth century, the breeds were supposed
to be either independent species, or hybrids.

1Quoted from The Farrier (1828) by Darwin, Animals and Plants under
Domestication. R. B. Lee says in Modern Dogs that the bull-dog is first

mentioned in 1631, when Prestwich Eaton wrote from St. Sebastian to London
for a mastiff and two good bull-dogs.

2 Origin of Species, chap. i.

84 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

The weapons mentioned by Caius as used in hunting
are the cross-bow, the javelin and the arrow.’ The net
was used in fowling in this way. The setter, when
he found the game (partridges or quails), crouched and
lay down, showing the direction of the birds with his
foot;? then it was the business of the fowler to draw his
net over them. This done, the setter roused the birds,
which got entangled in the net. Ferrets were used
to drive rabbits from their burrows.

We find a few dog-stories taken from books. Caius
quotes from Froissart the story of a greyhound belonging
to Richard IIJ., which greeted the Duke of Lancaster and
thereby gave a forecast of his master’s fate; he tells
also how Henry VII. ordered the mastiffs to be hanged
which had dared to attack the lion, the king of beasts.

THOMAS MOUFET
1553-1604

Insectorum sive minimorum animalium Theatrum: olim ab Edoardo Wot-
tono, Conrado Gesnero, Thomaque Pennio inchoatum: tandem Tho. Moufeti
Londinatis opera sumptibusque maximis concinnatum, auctum, perfectum, &e.
Fol. Lond. 1634.

Moufet* was the son of a Scotch tradesman settled in
London. He studied medicine under Caius at Cam-

1 Fifty years later (1621) Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy shows that bows,
arrows and javelins had then disappeared, the gun taking their place.
‘‘Fowling is more troublesome, but all out as delightsome to some sorts of
men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, gins, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes,
calls, stalking-horses, setting-dogs, coy-ducks, &c. or otherwise.” Pt. II,
sect. ii, memb. 4.

2««Pedis indicio locum stationis avium prodit : unde canem indicem [pointer]
vocare placuit.” Willughby’s Ornithology, where the training of a setter is
described, after Markham and others, makes no mention of pointing with the
foot, but says that when the dog ‘‘standeth still and waveth his tail, looking
forward as if he pointed at somewhat, be sure the Partridge is before him.”

The name is variously spelt, and is no doubt the same as Moffat.

MOUFET 85

bridge, and afterwards abroad. He practised in Ipswich
and in London, and was patronised by the Earl of
Pembroke, who made him member of parliament for
Wilton in 1597. Gesner, who was overpowered by the
impossible task of describing animals and plants of
every kind, had obtained the assistance of Thomas
Penny, who laboured to complete a sketch of a History
of Insects made by Wotton. At Penny’s death, his
notes, untidy and full of erasures, were handed over to
Moufet, who in turn died before the work was published.
Moufet’s manuscript lay long in the possession of Sir
Theodore Mayerne, who at last produced in 1634 the
belated treatise. Mayerne was a French protestant,
who had been physician to Henry IV., king of France.
He had incurred the hatred of the Galenists by using
chemical drugs, among others calomel. These troubles
probably drove him to England, where he became
physician to James I. and afterwards to Charles I.

Though Wotton, Gesner, Penny and Mayerne all
contributed to the book, it possesses little value. The
structure, life-histories and classification of insects are
handled without real knowledge, and the authors trusted
mainly to what they could find in the books of the
learned. The coarse woodcuts are mostly unnamed.
Martin Lister’ in a letter to Ray, criticises the con-
fused arrangement of Moufet’s matter, and still more
severely his transference of information from Aldrovandi,
who is not once named.

Those who care to occupy themselves with Moufet’s
literary gifts will find a favourable specimen in the
thirteenth chapter of the second book, where he dis-
courses upon the virtues of spiders. Of his inability to
distinguish between a true and a false narrative one

1 Correspondence of John Ray, 1848, p. 12.

86 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

proof will suffice. He relates that on Feb. 24th, 1574,
so great a multitude of cockchafers fell into the Severn
that the water-wheels were choked. The mills would
have been blocked to this day (etiamnum hodie), but for
the exertions of men, aided by fowls, ducks, nightjars,
sparrowhawks and bats.

A curious word or phrase, and at long intervals a fact
which is both credible and worth preserving, ill repay
the reader’s exertions. We find (Chap. I.) been, the old
plural of bee. Trying to prove that insects need not be
contemptible merely because they are small, Moufet has
recourse to the singular argument that Drake, though a
little man, was more than a match for the biggest of the
Spaniards. It would be hard to mention any more
valuable information which the book yields to a modern
naturalist than the statement that a Spanish galleon
captured by Drake was overrun with Cockroaches.

Mayerne’s dedication is livelier reading than Moufet’s
text. He dwells upon the wonders of the insect-world
with considerable animation. No doubt his disposition
was trustful, for he accepts such statements as that the
cicadas are fed on dew, and that the scarab rolls its
pellet of dung for a whole lunar month, following the
course of the sun all the time. There are better things
than these, however, in the dedication. Mayerne ex-
plains, quite truly, that the green grasshopper chirps
by rubbing its wing-covers together, and that its stomach
is armed with teeth. We find an interesting mention of
glass lenses, which had already been used to demonstrate
structural peculiarities of the flea, the movements of the
heart and blood in the louse, and the head and feet of
the itch-insect.

An English translation of the Theatrum is given as

1 Preface, 2P. 138.

BUTLER 87

an appendix to Topsell’s History of Four-footed Beasts
and Serpents (folio. Lond. 1658). Topsell’s History
is an adaptation of Gesner for English readers

CHARLES BUTLER
11647

The Feminine Monarchie; or a treatise concerning Bees and the due
ordering of them. 8vo. Oxford. 1609.

The Feminine Monarchy, or the History of Bees, written out of experience,
&e. Third edition. Sm. 4to. Oxford. 1634.

The first account of the economy of the bee-hive which
we shall have to notice is Butler’s Feminine Monarchy,
a learned, practical and amusing treatise. Thomas Hill’s
Profitable Art of Gardening (4th ed. Lond. 8vo. 1568)
contains a chapter on the ordering of bees, but Hill
explains in his preface that he had no practical know-
ledge of bees; he merely collected statements and
opinions from ancient authors.?

Butler was parson of Laurence Wotton, near Basing-
stoke, and master of Basingstoke grammar-school. He
wrote other books besides the Feminine Monarchy, a
treatise on rhetoric, a treatise on consanguinity in
marriage, an English grammar with a new phonetic
spelling, and a book on the principles of spelling. The
Feminine Monarchy seems to have achieved success ;
it reached a third edition, and a Latin translation was
published in 1673. I have quoted from the third
edition, which adopts the phonetic spelling advocated

1Butler explains in his preface that Georgius Pictorius had collected
passages about bees from ancient authors, and that one T.H. (Thomas Hill)
of London had translated these into English, concealing the author’s name.
‘“‘These and the like, when a scholar hath thoroughly read, he thinketh
himself thoroughly instructed in these mysteries, but when he cometh abroad
to put his learning in practice, every silly woman is ready to deride his
learned ignorance.”

88 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

in the author’s English Grammar. Some readers will
value this edition all the more because it contains
complimentary verses by George Wither. One sentence
in the book shows Butler’s politics: ‘The bees abhor as
well Polyarchy as Anarchy, God having shewed in them
unto men THE MOST NATURAL AND ABSOLUTE FORM OF
GOVERNMENT.” !

Butler looks up to Aristotle as the chief authority on
natural history, though he does not hesitate to correct
even Aristotle when there is cause. Aristotle, while
admitting that the case was not clear, had called the
supposed governor of the hive the king-bee; Butler
insists that in this community the males bear no sway
at all; it is an Amazonian or feminine monarchy. He
does not realise that the queen is under normal con-
ditions the mother of the entire family. ;

Of the drones he says that they are found in the
hive during the whole breeding season and then only ;
they are bred and reared by the workers. Wasps and
“dors” (humble-bees) have their drones, as well as
hive-bees.

The workers, which he calls the “honey-bees,” lay
all the eggs from which drones or workers are hatched.*
In summer only “they suffer their drones among them
for a season, by whose masculine virtue they strangely
conceive and breed for the preservation of their sweet
kind.” Proof that the drones are males was of course
unattainable as yet. No anatomical investigation of
the different inmates of the hive had been made, and

1Jerome Cortes (Libro y Tratado de los Animales, 8vo. Valencia, 1613,
p. 452) practised the same flattery before Butler, as did Joseph Warder
(The True Amazons, or the Monarchy of Bees, 12mo. Lond. 1712) after
him.

2Moufet, who died in 1599, had also maintained that the small bees”
are females, and the drones males (Theatrum, p. 13).

BUTLER 89

nearly two hundred years had still to run before the
mating of the queen with the drone became a demon-
strated fact. Butler admits (p. 55) that the drones
had not been seen to engender with the workers.

The queen, he says, is “perhaps of no kindred with
the drones or workers.” He seems to have imagined
that the offspring of the queen are all queens,? but
here he leaves much unexplained. Having remarked
that the cells are of different sizes, and that they are
completed before any eggs are laid in them, he infers
that the prolific female (not the queen, but the worker,
according to his view) enjoys a peculiar gift ; she knows
whether she is about to lay male or female eggs, and
chooses the cells accordingly.

Butler thinks that the queen is assisted by ‘“ subor-
dinate governors and leaders,” which are distinguished
by a crest, tuft, tassel, or plume, of yellow or murrey
colour, turned up in some, down in others. Pollen-
grains, clinging in strings to the heads of bees, as they
often do, no doubt gave rise to this fancy. There is a
hint of some belief of the same sort in Aristotle.

A tolerable account of the structure of the hive-bee is
given. The compound eyes are recognised as organs
of sight, and the “fangs” (mandibles) and ‘“‘ tongue ”
(proboscis) are briefly described. The “horns” (antennz)
are said to be used for feeling. We are told that no
brain is to be found in the head! The sight of bees, he
thinks, is poor, their sense of smell excellent; hearing,
feeling and taste they no doubt enjoy. Stinging, he
says, is present death to the bee which inflicts the
wound—rather too strong a statement of the case.

1¥or Milton’s theory of the bee-community, which may have been founded
on Butler, see infra, p. 186.

2 Yet he says :—‘‘if the old queen bring forth many princes (as she may have
six or seven, yea sometimes half a score or more, &c.).” P. 4.

90 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

Among the implements which he recommends to the
bee-master is a drone-pot, that is, a weel made of wire,
and used like a lobster-pot. The drone-pot is set at
the door of the hive, and is so constructed that the
drones can enter it, but cannot leave it again. In this
way drones can be caught and killed, whenever it is
necessary to prevent waste of the store of honey.?

Butler, being master of the art of music, as of many
other arts, attempts to set down the song of the bees
when busy in their hive. He tells us that he pricked
down the bees’ music with the help of a wind-instrument,
but confesses that his dull hearing could not perfectly
analyse the confused noise of the buzzing bees, and that
he was obliged to make out the conclusion as best he
could. He assigns the treble part to the princesses, the
bass to the queen, and tries to show how the inner parts
are supplied. The glee in four parts and triple time,
which he prints as the Bees’ Song, must not, of course,
be taken for a real transcription of the sounds of the
hive ; it would be as reasonable to believe that the bees
composed the verses to which the song is set. In the
engraved music the bass and counter-tenor parts are
printed upside-down, so that four singers, each holding
his own corner of the book, may sing away together.

Bees may be seen, says Butler, to blow liquid wax
from their mouths. Sometimes they do it in such a
hurry as to drop the wax in the form of loose white
scales on the stool or the “skirts” of the hive; these
scales, when warmed, can be kneaded into pellets.
Butler was on the way to discover how wax is secreted,
but was too impatient to work the matter out properly.

The hexagonal cells (Butler does not call them hexa-
gonal, but seax-square, a convenient English word, which

1Pp. 47, 66.

BUTLER 91

we have unwisely dropped)? are thought to be due to
the fact that bees have six feet. He notes some of the
advantages of the six-sided prism, though not its
strength nor its economy. He describes the pyramidal
ends, and the way in which every cell adjoins three cells
of the opposed layer.

Bee-bread, such as the workers bring home on their
hind feet, was then popularly believed to be some kind
of wax; Butler, however, calls it ‘gross honey,” or
‘‘oross leg-honey,” and explains that it has a sweet
taste, while it does not melt with heat.2 Nothing was
then known of the use of bee-bread in feeding the
larvee. Liquid honey, he rightly explains, the bees
collect with their tongues, and “let it down into their
bottels.” Virgil (who in this follows Aristotle) misleads
Butler on one point, making him say that the purest
nectar comes from above (‘aera mellis celestia dona ”).
This aerial honey is of course honey-dew, concerning
which naturalists knew nothing accurately until Réaumur
enlightened them.

When he comes to treat of the sallesigag habits of
bees, Butler furnishes some details which ahiow close
observation :—‘‘ They gather,” he says, “‘on the flowers
of the maple a whole month together, and somewhat on
the flower of vetch, when his time is, but the greatest
store of honey is drawn out of the black spot of the
little picked (piked, or pointed) leaf (stipule) of the vetch,
which groweth on each side of the two or three upper-
most joints. These they ply continually: I never saw
vetches, how far soever from hives, that for three months
together (if the weather served) were not full of bees.

1The same usage lasted through the eighteenth century. Wesley’s Journal
makes mention of rooms or buildings which were three-square, eight-square and
twelve-square.

2P. 106.

92 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS

Beans also, which with their flowers have also black-
spotted leaves as well as the vetches, on which sometimes
they gather.” *

“The bees gather but one kind of flower in one
voyage.”

“And in this great variety this is strange that where
they begin they will make an end, and not meddle with
any flower of other sort until they have’ their load.”
Here he quotes Aristotle (Hist. Anim. IX, 27). “ Inso-
much that those which begin with the flower of the
vetch will not once touch the rich spotted leaf of the
same before they have been at home. Although when
they come to a flower that yieldeth both nectar and
ambrosia, they will use sometimes the tongue and some-
times the fangs, and gather them both.”?

These observations, which were confirmed by Ray,?
appear to be the first mention of extra-floral nectaries.

The making of mead and metheglin is carefully
described. In Butler’s day no yeast was deliberately
added, though the diluted honey was often drawn into
a beer-barrel. He notes the formation of a ‘“ mother”
(impure pellicle of fermentative micro-organisms) on the
liquor and the proneness of the mead to pass into
vinegar. Mead is still made on the old plan in secluded
parts of England. Not long ago, in the dense beech-
woods of Buckinghamshire, and only thirty miles from
Cornhill as the crow flies, I saw a man and his wife
making mead just as Butler used to make it.

Butler thinks honey much better than sugar, and
tells how to make with honey, marmalade of quinces,
marchpane, and other sweetmeats which bear delicious
names.

1Pp. 109-10. 2P. 112.
® Cat. Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium, pp. 175-6 (1660).

BUTLER 93

It will be seen that the reader who spends a day or
two upon the Feminine Monarchy may expect other
pleasures than those of natural history. We now and
then come across forgotten English phrases and words,
e.g. “it is also convenient for each hive to have his
settle before him ;”} the bees are said to return to the
hive leere,? &c. Butler's lively expression often charms
the reader, as in the following passage :—‘ There re-
maineth yet another enemy worse than all these; for
these all do wrong the bees but by little and little, some
in their goods, some in their persons, and there is remedy
shewed, if industry be not wanting, against them all.
But this,” he means the stealer of hives, “when he
cometh, playeth sweepstake with them, carrying away
both honey and wax and bees and hive, &c.”

OLIVIER DE SERRES
1539-1619

Le Théatre d’Agriculture et Mesnage des Champs, d’Olivier de Serres,
seigneur du Pradel... Nouvelle edition... publiée par la Société
d’Agriculture du Département de la Seine. 2 vols. 8vo., Paris, Ans XIT-XIV
[1804-5].

Though the name of De Serres is rare in English
books,* he is still fondly remembered by Frenchmen.
His chief title to fame is that he did so much to spread
the silk-industry in France, but he is also honoured as
the author of the Thédtre d Agriculture, which gives a
lively picture of country life in Languedoc during the
latter half of the sixteenth century.

180 too in the English Grammer we have the verb and “his cases” ; but 2s
also occurs.

2 Leer (empty) is still used by the peasants of Devonshire.

3P, 137.

4 Arthur Young (Travels in France) speaks of him with enthusiasm.

94 A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH AGRICULTURIST

De Serres was prominent among the Protestants of
the Vivarais (the modern Ardéche). The Thédtre shows
that besides being a seigneur who tilled his own lands,
he was a wide reader and a practised writer.

Faujas de Saint-Fond,! writing in 1802, describes the
large and beautiful meadow which gave the name of Le
Pradel to Olivier de Serres’ estate, a league distant from
Villeneuve-de-Berg. It sloped gently from the chateau,
was watered by a spring issuing from its upper end, and
fringed by a triple row of fine oaks. In the background
rose a volcanic mountain, crowned with basaltic columns.
The chateau had been thrice fired during the wars of
religion, and only one of its towers was standing in
1802. All the trees which De Serres had planted
had been cut down, and little remained of his improve-
ments except the fragments of an aqueduct made for
watering his gardens and turning his mills. The house
still stands, though much altered.

The Thédtre opens with a discussion on soils. Some
of the indications of fertility are taken from the G'eorgics.
De Serres prefers a mixture of plain, hillside and
mountain, and praises as “bon et beau” a site
which not a little resembles his own domain of Le
Pradel.

De Serres is far from vulgar superstition; if he
collects old saws about lucky and unlucky days, it is
only to laugh at them. Nevertheless he does not reject
the prevalent opinion that the heavenly bodies exert an
influence upon the affairs of men. The moon especially,
as the nearest of them, may, he thinks, affect the
weather and the growth of plants and animals. The

1 An early geologist of great mark (1741-1819), who described the trachytic
mass of the Mézenc (Recherches sur les volcans éteints du Vivarais et du Velay,
1778), the basalt of Fingal’s cave, &c.

OLIVIER DE SERRES 95

tides ebb and flow under the influence of the moon;
plants turn towards the sun and are fostered by his
rays. Accordingly he would not set at naught the
belief that timber-trees must only be felled when the
moon is waning, lest he should thereby endanger
the safety of his buildings. But he thinks it foolish
to wait for a change of the moon when the weather is
favourable to the operations of the farm. Diligence to
seize opportunity by the forelock is better than all
forecasts.

“Que ’homme estant par trop lunier

De fruicts ne remplit son panier.”

Science, experience and diligence is the motto of the
Thédtre, science meaning knowledge, and especially
book-knowledge. De Serres is careful to show that
while book-learning may be futile, experience may be
unenlightened, and he trusts neither alone. Hence,
while he enforces Virgil’s advice :—‘‘ Laudato ingentia
rura, exigua colite,” or quotes Hesiod upon the difference
between the neighbour who rushes barefoot to help a
friend in trouble and the neighbour who waits till he has
finished dressing, he does not disdain to offer bits of
practical advice in homely rhymes, e.g.

“ Celui son bien ruinera
Qui par autrui le manira ;” or this,

“On dit bien vray, qu’en chacune saison
La femme fait ou défait la maison.”

»”

There is set before the reader a pleasing mixture of
history, literature and practical good sense. Obsolete
phrases often give a rustic flavour to the book, as here:—
“Plus rare present ne pourriez-vous faire & vos amis que
de fruits exquis: voire les plus grands seigneurs ont
accoustumé de recevoir humainement le plein panier
d’abricots bien choisis, et la douzaine de poires ou prunes

96 A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH AGRICULTURIST

de remarque que l’homme vertueux leur offre, tant petit
soit-il.”

The chapter on silk-culture begins with the ancients,
telling how Virgil believed that silk grew on trees, how
Pliny, though he knew that silk was spun by insects,
supposed that the insects were generated from fallen
flowers,! how under the emperor Aurelian silk was worth
its weight in gold, how two monks brought silkworm
eggs from Cathay to Byzantium in the reign of Justinian,
and how from this time silk-culture gradually spread
through the Mediterranean countries.

De Serres traces the introduction of the silkworm
and the mulberry-tree into France to the return of
Charles VIII from Italy (1494).2 By 1600 the industry
was well-established in Provence, Languedoc and some
of the neighbouring provinces, and had been attempted
in Touraine, the Orléannais and Normandy. In 1554
an edict had been put forth to encourage the planting
of mulberries. De Serres himself had reared silkworms
and collected their cocoons for thirty-five years when he
began to write about them.

In 1599 Henri Quatre, having remarked that imported
silk and silk-stuffs cost the French people “plus de
quatre milions d’or” every year, became eager to spread
silk-culture in his own dominions. De Serres was invited
to report on the subject, and having his Thédtre ready
for the press (it was published in the following year) he
extracted from it one chapter, which was printed as a
little 8vo pamphlet of about a hundred pages, called La
Cuillete de la Soye. A little later, in 1605, Laffemas,

1De Serres says leaves.

2Tt was only then, that is, in the sixth century a.p. that Europeans came to
know that silk is spun by caterpillars which feed on the mulberry-tree.

3 Earlier dates are also quoted. The first pope who resided at Avignon,
Clement V, is said to have introduced them in 1305.

OLIVIER DE SERRES 97

the minister of Commerce, aided the same cause by
writing a manual of mulberry-planting and silkworm-
feeding for the use of the clergy. Good advice was not
the only means employed, for the king prohibited the
importation of silk-fabrics, and ordered the white
mulberry to be planted in all his gardens. From
fifteen to twenty thousand were sent to the Tuileries,
where a large house was built and fitted up for the
rearing of silkworms.

Sully opposed the extension of silk-culture in France,
on the ground that it would encourage luxury; his
objections were not heeded. Colbert, who found time
for every enterprise that concerned the interests of
France, attended to the improvement of the silk-
industry, and it gradually rose to great importance.
In 1780 the value of the annual yield of cocoons was
estimated at near a million sterling, and by 1848 the
figure had risen to four millions.

De Serres calls silk a miracle of nature, and the silk.
worm ‘animal admirable,” lacking as it does flesh, blood,
bones, intestines, eyes, ears and other things which are
found in nearly all animals. He has a good general
notion of the life-history. The abstinence from food of
the pupa strikes him as surprising. He enters into
many practical details concerning the propagation and
management both of the mulberry and of the silkworm.
The maladies to which the larva is subject are carefully,
though not instructively, described. Superstitious or
fanciful usages, such as dipping the eggs into choice wine,
hatching them in the bosom of a woman, and sipping
wine before handling the larvee, are mentioned, some-
times with approval ; the phases of the moon appropriate
to every operation are duly noted. The spontaneous

generation of silkworms from the flesh of a calf, a
@

98 A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH AGRICULTURIST

survival of the ancient belief in the generation of bees
from the flesh of oxen, is described. De Serres finds no
inherent improbability in the story, but calls for experi-
mental proof, which is just what a sensible man might
have been expected to do in the year 1600.

The mulberry is not valued in the Thédtre solely
because it yields food for the silkworm ; its culture is
strongly advocated on account of its bast, which was
reputed to be highly serviceable for cordage and cloth.
The branches, collected at the time of lopping, were
soaked and peeled; the bast was then bruised, dressed
and carded, like hemp or flax, and spun.

De Serres practised the artificial incubation of eggs,
which had long been familiar to the Egyptians and the
Chinese. He furnishes curious information about recently
introduced animals and plants (guinea-pigs, turkeys,
maize, beet-root), the sugar-cane, which he thought
might be acclimatised, artificial meadows, greenhouses,
then a luxury of princes,’ wind and water-mills, and
cisterns made of other materials than stone.

1The Orangerie at Heidelberg was already famous. Henri IV had one at

the Tuileries, and Louis XIV (long after the date of the Thédtre) added many
to the gardens of Versailles and the Jardin du Roi.

SECTION IV. RAY AND SOME OF HIS
FELLOW-WORKERS

JOHN RAY
1627-1705

FRANCIS WILLUGHBY
1635-1672

Francisci Willughbeii de Middleton in agro Warwicensi, Armigeri, e Regia
Societate, Ornithologie libri tres... Totum opus recognovit, digessit, sup-
plevit Joannes Raius. Sumptus in Chalcographos fecit illustriss. D. Emma
Willughby, Vidua. Fol. Lond., 1676.

The Ornithology of Francis Willughby . . . in three books... translated into
English, and enlarged with many additions... to which are added, three
considerable discourses, I. Of the Art of Fowling,...II. Of the Ordering of
Singing Birds, III. Of Falconry. By John Ray. Fol. Lond. 1678.

Francisci Willughbeii...de Historia Piscium Libri quatuor, jussu et
sumptibus Societatis Regiz Londinensis editi... Totum opus recognovit,
coaptavit, supplevit, librum etiam primum et secundum integros adjecit
Johannes Raius. Fol. Oxon., 1686.

(Francisci Willughbeii] Historia Insectorum, opus posthumum, 4to. Lond.
1710.

Synopsis methodica animalium quadrupedum et serpentini generis. Auctore
Joanne Raio, §.R.S. 8vo. Lond. 1693.

Joannis Raii Synopsis methodica avium et piscium ; opus posthumum, &c.
8vo. Lond. 1713.

Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium, &c. 12mo. Cam-
bridge, 1660.

Methodus Plantarum nova, autore Joanne Raio. 8vo. Lond., 1682.

Jo. Raii Historia Plantarum. 3 vols. Fol. Lond. 1686-1704.

Joannis Raii Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum... Editio
secunda. Accessit... Rivini Epistola ad Joan. Raium de Methodo: cum
ejusdem Responsoria, &c. 8vo. Lond. 1696.

A Collection of English Proverbs, by J[ohn] R[ay]. 8vo. Lond. 1670.

Joun Ray, the son of a blacksmith, was born at Black
Notley in Essex in 1627. He probably showed early

100 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

talent, for he was sent to the neighbouring grammar
school at Braintree, and afterwards, at the cost of one
Squire Wyvill, to the university of Cambridge. He
became fellow and tutor of Trinity; while still a layman,
he was selected to preach before the university, and his
discourses attracted some attention. At thirty-five he
was not only learned in the ancient literatures, and
competent in divinity, but known to some few as a
naturalist of great promise. He had gathered about
him undergraduates who were fond of natural history,
some of them heirs to great estates, and had secured the
co-operation of Francis Willughby, the ablest and most
zealous of the little company, in a scheme for the
methodical investigation of the animals and plants of all
accessible parts of the world. He had already traversed
most parts of England and Wales, besides the Lowlands
of Scotland, in search of rare plants and other natural
curiosities, and these travels he was afterwards to extend
beyond the seas.

Such were Ray’s achievements and prospects when
his future was darkened by misfortunes heavy enough
to crush a man of no more than ordinary courage and
patience. Charles II was restored to the throne of his
fathers. The change seemed at first propitious to Ray,
who was, what he continued to be to the day of his
death, a sincere but moderate churchman. He was
ordained by Bishop Sanderson a few months after the
Restoration, and was looking forward to an honourable
career in church and university when the Act of Uni-
formity was passed. Ray had no scruples about any of
the doctrines or offices of the Church of England. He
had never signed the Solemn League and Covenant,
which was reprobated by the Act of Uniformity; indeed,
he considered it an unlawful oath. But the Act required

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 101

him to declare that the oath was not binding upon those
who had taken it, and this Ray could not in conscience
do. No scruples of this or any other kind were respected
by the High Churchmen who were then dominant in
church and state. Ray held no benefice, but he was
turned out of his fellowship ; Cambridge and the church
were closed to him; he was deprived of his livelihood,
and forced to seek a new calling.

Henceforth Ray’s life was, in the main, a life of poverty
and seclusion. For some years he was supported by
his wealthy associate, Francis Willughby, whose children
he helped to educate, but Willughby died in 1672, and
then Ray was compelled to serve as a tutor under less
agreeable conditions. At the age of fifty-two he returned
to his native village, to subsist upon a small pension
bequeathed to him by Willughby. During the last
twenty years of his life he was often kept close to the
fireside by painful sores upon his legs. He continued
to write and publish to the very last. His works were
highly valued by those who could judge, and some of
them passed through several editions. But the pub-
lishing trade was then very imperfectly organised ; an
author had usually to be satisfied with whatever the
bookseller chose to allow him, and Ray was probably
wretchedly paid for his labours. At his death in 1705
he had less than forty pounds a year to bequeath to his
widow and daughters.

I have found no single passage in which Ray
speaks reproachfully of his persecutors. He seldom
mentions his sufferings at all, and then uses particularly
calm expressions. In the preface to his Wasdom of God
in the Creation he explains that “being not permitted to
serve the Church with my Tongue in Preaching, I know
not but it may be my Duty to serve it with my Hand

102 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

by Writing.” After the Revolution he had the satis-
faction of congratulating himself and his readers upon the
triumph of liberty, the purification of religion, and the
restoration of the ancient laws of England, but his solemn
thanksgiving makes no mention of private injuries.

The most intimate of Ray’s friends was Francis, only
son of Sir Francis Willughby of Middleton Hall in
Warwickshire and of Wollaton, near Nottingham. The
hall at Wollaton, built in 1588, is one of the noblest
examples of English domestic architecture. When an
undergraduate at Cambridge Willughby came under the
influence of Ray, joined him in his journeys, and helped
him to frame liberal schemes for the advancement of
natural history. After Ray was forced to leave Cam-
bridge, the two friends determined to visit foreign
countries together. Adding to their party two pupils
of Ray, they travelled through the Low Countries,
Germany, Switzerland, Bavaria, Italy, Sicily and Malta.
Three of them returned through Switzerland and France,
while Willughby protracted his tour by a visit to Spain.
Ray tells us that his friend had designed a voyage
to the new world in order to perfect his History
of Animals, but did not live to undertake it.. The
arrangement of their collections, fresh journeys in the
British Isles, and experimental researches engaged the
two naturalists for several years more, when Willughby
was cut off by a sudden illness.

Ray was made one of the executors under Willughby’s
will, and charged with the education of two sons. Sixty
pounds a year (the amount was afterwards slightly
increased) was bequeathed to him for life, and this was
henceforth his principal livelihood. He married a young
woman resident at Middleton Hall, who helped him with

1 Preface to the Synopsis Stirpium.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 103

the children. Lady Willughby, the mother of Francis,
seems to have promoted in every way the plans of her
late son. For three or four years Ray was continued in
his office as tutor, and money was found for the publi-
cation of the first of the unfinished memoirs which
Willughby had left behind him. Then Lady Willughby
died, Ray gave up his tutorship, and the Willughby
connection seems to have been broken off altogether,
except that Ray’s pension was still paid.?

The indefatigable Ray, though now reduced to a
humble way of life, determined none the less to com-
plete by himself the vast enterprise to which he had set
his hand. Willughby had left behind him an imperfect
Ornithology, an imperfect Ichthyology, and many scat-
tered observations on insects. All of these Ray con-
trived to publish, having first completed them to the
best of his power. Nor did he neglect the share of the
work originally assigned to him, which was the descrip-
tion and arrangement of the plants, not only of Britain,
but of all countries hitherto investigated.

WILLUGHBY’S ORNITHOLOGY

Ray first undertook to revise and complete the Orni-
thology, making it his main design to describe accurately
each species. ‘‘ We ourselves,” he claims, “did carefully
describe each bird from the view and inspection of it
lying before us.” He finds fault with Willughby’s
excessive minuteness. “Now though I cannot but
commend his diligence, yet I must confess that in
describing the colours of each single feather he some-
times seems to me to be too scrupulous and particular
... yet dared I not to omit or alter anything.”? He

1Ray’s Synopsis Stirpium (1690) is dedicated to the surviving son of Francis
Willughby.
» Preface.

104 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

owns the obligations of the Ornithology to Gesner and
Aldrovandi, but claims to have corrected many of their
mistakes, such as the making of two or three species out.
of one. Willughby had made a collection of pictures
of birds, and caused various species to be drawn for him
by good artists; from these and published figures a
selection was made which Ray thought were the best
and truest hitherto engraved. Neither the sources of
the figures nor the scale is indicated.

Birds of all countries are included. The measure-
ments and the weight of the bird are often given, and
a careful note is made of its external features. There
are usually rough memoranda concerning the internal
anatomy (crop, gizzard, intestine, cecal appendages,
gall-bladder, trachea, &c.), and the contents of the
stomach are sometimes mentioned. The eggs of many
of the birds are shortly described. The species is iden-
tified, if possible, with some species of earlier authors,
and a large part of the history is sometimes condensed
from Aldrovandi, Gesner, Clusius, Jonston, Belon, Olina,
Turner, &c. There are also descriptions of foreign birds
taken from Marcgraf (birds of South America), Bontius
(East Indies), and others. The uses of the bird in
medicine, cookery, falconry, &c., are noted. Harvey or
Malpighi may be quoted on some point of anatomy or
physiology; some trustworthy friend may furnish a
description or a note of occurrence. The localities
mentioned show a wide acquaintance with British
topography, and a singular curiosity (in Ray, no doubt)
concerning places, names and odd facts of every kind.
The popular English names of the birds are given, and
now and then names that have some etymological
interest. For instance, the following names for the
woodpecker are quoted :—woodspite, pickatrees (N. of

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 105

England), rain-fowl, highhoe or heghoe, hew-hole, wit-
wall, hickwall. The list might be greatly lengthened ;
in Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary the woodpecker
figures under almost every letter of the alphabet.
Wrerangle (Germ. Werkengel) is a name for the shrike,
jlusher ( flesher?) for the lesser shrike. The redwing
used to be called a windthrush, and Dr. Charleton, once
known as the author of the Onomasticon Zoicum (1668),
traced the name to a belief that the redwing came over
in the equinoctial gales. Ray’s knowledge of languages
showed him that this was a mistake; the Germans, he
says, call the redwing Wyntrostel (Weindrossel), because
it is fond of grapes, and we have adopted the German
name, changing its form to suit an erroneous interpre-
tation.?

Among the helpers to whom he returns thanks Ray
mentions Sir Thomas Brown, the author of the Religio
Medici, who owned a collection of birds, and had written
an account of birds found in Norfolk; Francis Jessop of
Sheffield, Philip Skippon of Wrentham in Suffolk, and
Ralph Johnson of Brignall in Teesdale.

The fables which are treated so gravely by his pre-
decessors receive little consideration. Gryphons, harpies,
phoenixes and rocs find no place in this book. Ray is
incredulous about the transformation of barnacles into
geese, the renewal of their youth by eagles, the incessant
flight of birds of paradise, the wool-bearing fowl, the
antipathy between the lion and the cock, the six months’
sleep of the humming bird, or the milking of goats by
the nightjar. The wonderful tales of Nieremberg are
put by themselves in an appendix.

An introductory section treats of the structure,

1p, 190. Turner (Hist. Avium) quotes the English name as wyngthrushe,
and the German as weingaerdsvogel.

106 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

development, and mode of life of birds. The anatomical
part is largely taken from Willis and Harvey. The
sclerotic ring in the eye is mentioned. We are told of
the curious rule of the regular increase in the number of
the phalanges from the first to the last digit of the foot,
a rule which “hath not as yet been taken notice of by
any naturalist, that I know” (p. 3). Mention is made
of the exception furnished by the swift, in which “the
least toe has one joint, and the other three two joints
each, contrary to the manner of all other birds that we
know beside it” (p, 214). The muscles of flight are
mentioned, and we are assured that if men ever fly, it
must be with their legs. The wonderful protractile
tongue and the prolonged hyoid of the woodpecker are
explained and figured. This structure was afterwards
redescribed by De la Hire and Méry, and became a
favourite proof of the wisdom of Providence. The
double-shafted feather of the cassowary, which had been
described and figured by Clusius, appears here again.
Under the head of development we find mention of the
fact that a fowl’s egg cannot be easily crushed by the
fingers, if the pressure is applied to the two ends. It is
boldly affirmed that all animals, even viviparous animals,
proceed from eggs; there was as yet no suspicion that an
animal may be budded forth from its parent. Twenty-
four questions are printed, which Willughby had pro-
posed to himself concerning birds, e.g. whether they cast
their claws and bills; whether the iris is always of the
same colour in the same species ; a few of the questions
have answers appended to them. There is a brief
account of remarkable breeding-places of British birds.
Aristotle had said? that while some birds migrated
according to the season of the year, swallows did not,
1 Hist. Animalium, VIII, 15.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 107

but had been found hiding, and entirely bare of feathers,
in the winter months. This statement may possibly
have encouraged Olaus Magnus,! or those who prompted
him, to publish the ridiculous fable about swallows
lying hid at the bottom of lakes and rivers, two together,
mouth to mouth and wing to wing. This delusion once
set going, false reports were readily produced to support
it, and the theory of hibernation did not die out till the
end of the eighteenth century. Gilbert White enter-
tained to the day of his death a suspicion that the
swallows of Selborne never left the country, but merely
went into hiding for the winter. Willughby and Ray
attributed the seasonal disappearance of the cuckoo,
swallows, fieldfare and woodcock to migration, though
they had to admit that the truth or falsehood of the
‘tales about hibernation had not been certainly deter-
mined. They say of the nightingale that it does not
endure cold well, and either goes into hiding in the
winter, or departs for warm countries.

In the seventeenth century the bustard and the crane
were still well-known English birds. Willughby and
Ray tell us that in their day the bustard frequented the
heaths and plains of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and other
parts of the kingdom.’ Great flocks of cranes were to
be seen in summer in the marshes of Lincolnshire and
Cambridgeshire.*

Seventeen domestic races of pigeons are named and
described, several being figured ; Aldrovandi had already
given a systematic table of the breeds of pigeons.

Mention is made of the aviary in St. James’ Park, an
aery of sea-eagles belonging to the Countess of Pem-

1 Hist. de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555). See supra, p. 59.

2P, 178. The last British-bred bustard was killed in May, 1838.
3P. 274,

108 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

broke at Winfield in Westmoreland, the menagerie in
the Tower of London, the repository of the Royal
Society, and the museum of the Tradescants. A decoy
for wild ducks is described with the help of rude figures.!
The snaring of pheasants and the daring of larks are
explained, as well as the classification of hawks by
falconers.

Willughby and Ray had little sense of the relative
value of zoological characters ; it gives a sufficient idea
of their judgment in this matter that they sometimes
divide their birds according to size, colour, the nature
of the food, the length of the leg, wildness or tameness.
For the mere naming of such species as are not finely
graded their divisions and sections, which are accom-
panied by a key, may have answered pretty well.

They are not careful to mark the birds which are
described for the first time, but the Whooper Swan, the
Herring Gull and the Black Diver (our Common Scoter)
they claim as hitherto undescribed. They note that
the trachea enters the keel of the sternum in the
Whooper, as previously observed by Aldrovandi, but
not in the tame swan.

Willughby and Ray explain in their preface the usage
which they adopted in this and other books on natural
history with respect to the names of what we now call
genera and species. They took little trouble, they say,
about nomenclature, and usually followed Gesner and
Aldrovandi, being unwilling to disturb accepted names.
Their chief care was to make it quite clear what bird
was denoted by a particular name. They were indiffer-
ent whether the name was Latin or English, of one word
or several. Thus we have “Fulica, the Coot,” but the

1P. 372. More elaborate figures are given in Bewick’s Water Birds and in
Yarrell’s Birds.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 109

Black Tern is “Larus niger fidipes noster.” They
followed the practice, then usual, of giving a name of
one word to what we now call a genus, or to a species
which stands alone in its genus, but a name of two or
more words to each of the species in a large genus.

The following is a general view of the classification
of Birds adopted by Willughby and Ray.

Lanp Fow.

Rapacious Diurnal (include shrikes and cuckoo),

Rapacious Nocturnal (include nightjar).

The Crow Kind.

The Woodpecker Kind (includes wryneck, nuthatch, creeper,
hoopoe).

The Poultry Kind (includes the landrail).

The Pigeon Kind.

The Thrush Kind (includes the starling).

Small Birds with slender bills.

Small Birds with thick bills.

Water FowL
Cloven-footed (Waders).
Birds of a middle nature between Swimmers and Waders
(water-hen, coot, grebe).
Whole-footed (Web-footed).

Some passages are next extracted, which either yield
useful information, or illustrate Ray and Willughby’s
handling.

Lapwing

“Tt builds its nest on the ground, in the middle of
some field or heath, open and exposed to view, laying
only some few straws or bents under the eggs, that the
nest be not seen. The eyes [eggs] being so like in
colour to the ground on which they lie, it is not easy to
find them though they lie so open. The young, so soon
as they are hatcht, instantly forsake the nest, running
away, as the common tradition is, with the shell upon

110 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

their heads, for they are covered with a thick down,
and follow the old ones like chickens. They say that a
lapwing, the further you are from her nest, the more
clamorous she is, and the greater coil she keeps; the
nearer you are to it, the quieter she is, and less con-
cerned she seems, that she may draw you away from
the true place, and induce you to think it is where it is
not.” +

Bittern

“They say that it gives always an odd number of
bombs [booms] at a time, viz., three or five; which in
my own observation I have found to be false. It
begins to bellow about the beginning of February,
and ceases when breeding-time is over. The common
people are of opinion that it thrusts its bill into a
reed, by the help whereof it makes that lowing or
drumming noise. Others say that it thrusts its bill
into the water, or mud, or earth, and by that means
imitates the lowings of an ox. It hides itself, commonly
among reeds and rushes, and sometimes lies in hedges
with its neck and head erect.

“In the autumn after sunset these birds are wont
to soar aloft in the air with a spiral ascent, so high
till they get quite out of sight, in the meantime making
a singular kind of noise, nothing like to lowing.” ’

Kingfisher

“It is a vulgar persuasion that this bird, being hung
up on an untwisted thread by the bill in any room, will
1P, 308.

2Pp. 282-3. ‘Few people in Britain have ever heard its loud and awful
voice” (Newton, Dicty. of Birds). The last bittern’s egg was taken in
Norfolk in 1868, and the ‘‘ boom” was last heard in 1886 (Southwell, Notes
and Letters of Sir T. Browne, p. 17n.). Since this note was written the
bittern has again bred in Norfolk, as Miss E. L. Turner states in British
Birds, Sept. 1911.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 111

turn its breast to that quarter of the heaven whence the
wind blows. They that doubt of it may try it.”?

Blackbird

“The blackbird builds her nest very artificially with-
outside of moss, slender twigs, bents and fibres of roots,
cemented and joined together with clay instead of glue,
daubing it also all over withinside with clay. Yet doth
she not lay her eggs upon the bare clay, like the mavis,
but lines it with a covering of small straws, bents, hair,
or other soft matter, upon which she lays her eggs, both
that they might be more secure and in less danger of
breaking, and also that her young might lie softer and
warmer.” ?

Kites

“They are very noisome to tame birds, especially
chickens, ducklings and goslings, among which espying
one far from shelter, or that is carelessly separated a
good distance from the rest, or by any other means
lies fit and exposed to rapine, they single it out, and
fly round and round for a while, marking it; then
of a sudden dart down as swift as lightning, and catch
it up before it is aware, the dam in vain crying out,
and men with hooting and stones scaring them away.
Yea, so bold are they that they affect to prey in cities
and places frequented by men, so that the very gardens
and courts or yards of houses are not secure from their
ravine. For which cause our good housewives are very
angry with them, and of all birds hate and curse them
the most.’ ?

WILLUGHBY’S HISTORY OF FISHES

Beyond the statement on the title-page that the first
and second books, which treat of fishes in general and of

1P, 146. 2p. 191.
3P. 75. For an earlier account of kites in London see p. 78.

112 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

the cetaceans, were written by Ray, we have no distinct
indication how much of the book is Ray’s, how much
Willughby’s. Here, as in the Ornithology, we can only
guess whose are the thoughts and statements which we
have before us.

The authors had visited all the best-known fishing
stations in England, Holland, Germany, France, and
Italy.1 They were however unable to make themselves
personally acquainted with more than a small proportion
of the fishes known to Belon and Rondelet. Most of
the figures are copied ;? among such as are original a
few, e.g. that of the perch, are life-like. It canot be
said that this is a very important contribution to
natural history. Much is taken from Rondelet. The
‘cetacean fishes” are retained,® and Lophius keeps its
old place among the cartilaginous fishes. It is something
that invertebrate aquatic animals are excluded, and that
classification by habitat is abandoned. Useful characters
are drawn from the texture of the fins and the number
of dorsal fins.

We find a description of the uses of whalebone, which
reminds us how long certain fashions have lasted:
‘‘Laminis illis corneis, que palata hujus piscis inna-
scuntur, fissis et perpolitis, politiores muliercule sua
pectoralia communire, vestiumque fibras rigidiores et
rotundiores continere ; atque apparitores publici virgu-
larum ac fascium loco gestare solent, ut recte Bellonius.”*

1TIn a letter to Dr. Tancred Robinson (Ray Correspondence, ed. of Ray Soc.,
p. 166) Ray laments that all his notes on the animals of High and Low
Germany had been lost.

2Belon, Rondelet, Salviani, Gesner and Marcgraf are among the authors
drawn upon.

3 Supra, p. 49.

4P. 38. ‘Bellonius” is, of course, Belon. The whalebone occasionally

mentioned in medizval authors was white, and cut from walrus-teeth (Wright,
Homes of other Days, p. 119).

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 113

After saying that sharks have the mouth so placed
that they must turn over to seize their prey, Willughby
and Ray explain that this is a provision of nature for
securing the safety of other fishes, and also for pre-
venting the sharks from perishing by their own greedi-
ness.} He the same way De Geer admires the providential
instinct which causes scorpions to kill one another
whenever they meet, and so hinders these “ insectes
malfaisans” from becoming too numerous? Natural
theology, which undertakes -to justify all the arrange-
ments of nature, finds it necessary to maintain that she
sometimes parries her own blows.

Our authors think that the fish which swallowed
Jonah must have been a shark, not a whale, because (1)
the whale has a very contracted throat; (2) whales are
very seldom seen in the Mediterranean; and (3) the
fish in whose belly Hercules spent three days was,
according to Lycophron, a shark.?

THE HISTORIA INSECTORUM, 1710

The weakness of attempting too much appears more
strongly in Ray’s History of Insects than in any other
of his writings. The indefatigable old man laboured to
the last to complete his gigantic task, which included an
ornithology, an ichthyology and a history of plants. It
was in his eyes a sacred duty to rescue from oblivion even
the scattered observations on insects made forty years
before by his friend and fellow-worker. These fragmen-
tary materials Ray supplemented by new observations of
no great moment, such as brief descriptions of caterpillars
(whose later stages were still undiscovered, and which
are arranged only by the year of observation), or short
notes by Lister and Derham. Meanwhile the founda-

IP, 45. 2 Hist. des Insectes, Vol. VII, p. 337. 3P, 48.
H

114 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

tions of a real History of Insects had been laid by
Swammerdam (infra, p. 181). The classification adopted
by Ray may be passed by without remark ; the ancients
and Swammerdam furnish all that is of value. I find
no original passages which call for extraction, only at
long intervals such curiosities of natural history as
Pappus’ remarks on the advantage for storing of the
hexagonal cells of the honeycomb, Mentzel’s account of
the vinegar-fly (Drosophila), Derham’s notices of gnats,
blood-worms and the Corethra-larva, which he calls an
“animated shadow.”

Some of Willughby’s papers in the Philosophical
Transactions are of interest, such as his account of
ichneumons,! and of the leaf cutting bee (‘bees bred in
cartridges ”).?

THE CATALOGUE OF CAMBRIDGE PLANTS

In his preface Ray speaks of the ill-health which had
obliged him to spend some of his time in riding or
walking, and had thus favoured his open-air studies.
The riding (alas!) became impossible in later years, but
Ray continued to be an ardent field-naturalist, until he
could walk no more. When he began to pay attention
to plants, no one in the university had a passable know-
ledge of botany, and even the smatterers were few. He
seems to have thought that botany had actually declined,
for he speaks of it as “ extinctum peene et intermortuum.”

Ray adopted the nomenclature of J. and OC. Bauhin,
and of the English herbalists Gerard and Parkinson,
simply because their books were so well known. John
Bauhin’s Hestory he cannot praise too highly, and Caspar
Bauhin’s Pinaw was of great use to him; Gerard and
Parkinson he thought little of.

1 Phil. Trans. No. 76 (1670). 2 Ibid. Nos. 65, 74. Cf. Lister, ibid. No. 160.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 115

The mention of the two Bauhins reminds us that
in the interval between L’Obel and Ray systematic
botany had made real progress. Reverence for the
ancients had grown less servile, the demands of
pharmacy less exorbitant, figures of common plants
less indispensable. Caspar Bauhin had rectified the
intolerable confusion of plant-names. Jung (infra,
p- 123n.) had framed a well-considered botanical termi-
nology. The sense of natural affinities had become more
enlightened, though the best naturalists were still
misled by adaptive resemblance, and plants were
brought together merely because they agreed in being
aquatic, or in climbing, or in possessing trefoil leaves.
One old and laudable practice was firmly adhered to ;
botanists sought first to discern, and then to define,
the groups which exist in nature; no one imitated
Cesalpini in proposing a new classification simply
because it struck him as precise and logical. The
natural families recognised were however so few (less
than a dozen), that Ray at first employed an alphabetical
sequence of genera, and this is what we find in the
Catalogue of Cambridge Plants.

The Catalogue of 1660 contains 671 species of wild
plants. An appendix (1663) added 37 species, and
Peter Dent’s edition of this appendix (1685) 59 more.
In the Catalogue of English Plants (1670, 1677) Ray
marked the Cambridgeshire species by the letter C,
so that this catalogue is a kind of supplement to the
Cambridge one. The Martyns (father and son), Relhan
and Babington have since revised the flora of Cambridge-
shire, and the last-named botanist has noted the changes
due to the interference of man since Ray’s time.

To many of the plants Ray appends notes, and here
he allows himself great latitude, quoting sayings of

116 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

authors, observations on insects which feed upon the
plants, and anything else which might prove useful
to his pupils. These notes are often curious, and throw
light upon the state of natural history in 1660, but
the want of arrangement is so troublesome that the
reader may be obliged to make an index for himself.
Some notable passages will now be extracted in a con-
densed form.

Uncertainty of Nomenclature

It is startling to find Ruta, Salvia, Paronychia,
Saxifraga and Empetron given as synonyms of Adiantum;
or Tussilago and Chrysanthemum as synonyms of Caltha,
but parallel cases are to be found in Caspar Bauhin’s
Pinax. When it was thought legitimate to group
plants by the shape of the leaf, or the medicinal virtues
(often quite imaginary), the most eccentric associations
were possible.

Both in this Catalogue and in the later Synopsis
Stirpium a species is usually an indivisible group of
plants, while a genus is a group of species. The ten
species of Willow, for example, are arranged in the
Catalogue under two genera. This sense of the word
genus is not, however, invariable; genus may mean
no more than kind or sort.1 What we call the generic
name is with Ray “the name,” to which he affixes
an adjectival “epithet” characteristic of the species.
Different genera do not necessarily bear different
“names,” either in the Cambridge Catalogue or in
the Synopsis. Thus clover and wood-sorrel are both
ealled Trifolium, though they are placed (in the Synopsis)
in different parts of the system. Ray quotes from

1Examples occur in Cat. Cantab. under the heads of Lupulus, Hordeum,
Triticum, &c.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 117

Spigel the remark that no name is applied to so many
“genera” as Trifolium.! He apparently thought it no
more necessary to alter the generic names of plants
to suit his views on system than to alter the names
of towns or men so as to make them accord with some
logical method. Wood-sorrel had long before Ray’s
time been distinguished from Trifolium as Oxys (by
Valerius Cordus), but Ray caréd little about the name so
long as it was clear what plant was denoted.

Fern-seed

Under Filix foemina authorities are quoted on both
sides of the question whether ferns bear seeds or not.
Ray supports the negative side, and argues that various
plants lack one of the organs which are considered
to be essential. Gelsemimum (Jasmine) has no fruit,
Fig no flower, Asparagus and Dodder no leaves, Mistletoe
no root.

Cuckoo-spit (Frog-hopper)

Woodseare is given as a synonym; where does it
come from? Ray understands the purpose and the
mode of formation of the froth, though he is wrong
in supposing that it comes from the mouth of the larva ;
he had wiped away the froth, and seen it form again.
The leaping of the full-grown insect had led some
naturalists to call it a grasshopper. (See Papaver
spumeum, p. 112.)

Ichneumons
Under Dipsacus and Rapum we find observations
upon ichneumons, which were in the seventeenth century
generally believed to proceed from eggs, not laid by
insects, but directly generated in the tissues of the host.

1Cat. Cantab. p. 169.

118 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

Willughby’s account of the ichneumon of the cabbage
butterfly is given. Some of the caterpillars are said
to have produced, not ichneumons but flesh-flies
(Tachinidee?). Ray and Willughby remarked the
similarity of the ichneumons to ants and gall-flies,
They are cautious about drawing conclusions from what
they thought they had seen. “De his nobis nondum
satis perspectis nihil temere pronunciare audemus.”
Another season they would make more careful observa-
tions. A few years later we find Martin Lister’ quite
clear that ichneumons are bred from eggs laid in cater-
pillars or the eggs of spiders by flies of the same species.
Willughby’ thought Lister’s explanation ingenious and
true, but desired fuller proof.

The Androgyny of Snails

Under Deadly Nightshade Ray observes that the
poisonous properties of this plant do not keep off snails
and slugs, and goes on to say that these mollusks are
androgynous. The details which he mentions leave no
doubt that he had witnessed and understood the re-
ciprocal union, of which he says that neither Aristotle,
nor, so far as he knew, anyone else had made mention.
Seven years later Swammerdam noted the same remark-
able fact, which he further elucidated by dissection ;? he
was ignorant at this time that he had been anticipated
by Ray; it was not to be expected that a discovery
relating to snails would be found in a catalogue of
Cambridge plants.t The Biblia Nature contains excel-
lent figures, with a full description.

1 Phil. Trans. 1671 ; Translation of Goedart (1682).
2 Phil. Trans. 1671. 3 De respiratione, p. 117 (1667).

4Swammerdam’s Historia Insectorum Generalis (1669) recognises Ray’s
priority.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 119

Mstorical Curiosities

A glimpse of old usages is now and then given by
some chance word in the catalogue. Mentha cattaria
(the greater Catmint) grows “in a lane on the right
hand of Barnwell in going thither, which leads down to
the moor on which stand the pest-houses.” Ebulus
grows “along the balks of the plowed fields next the
closes,” a reminder that cornfields were often (in still
earlier times always) unenclosed. The balks were un-
cultivated strips, which served to divide the “ yard-
lands.” They were common in Cambridgeshire till the
end of the eighteenth century. There are also some
curiosities of language. Why should cudweed (Filago
germanica) be called “the herb impious”? The answer
may be found in Pliny; it is because the younger
flowering heads overtop the older ones, as undutiful
children overtop their parents. Gerard had explained
the old name of wood-sorrel (Alleluia) by the singing of
Alleluia in the churches at the season (Easter to Whit-
suntide) when wood-sorrel flowers, but Ray, following
Scaliger, rejects this with some contempt, and derives
the name from the Italian Juliola.

The references to the gardens and flower-shows of
Norwich,” and to Dr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Browne’s
Garden of Cyrus* are not without interest.

EXPERIMENTS ON THE FLow or Sap
Ray and Willughby published in the Philosophical

Transactions some early experiments on what they
called the sap of trees. Any liquid which was contained
in the tissues of a living plant was then called sap.

1Cat. Cantab. p. 165, and Glossary, p. 39.
2P, 97. 3p. 171.
4No. 48, p. 963 (1669); No. 70, p. 2125 (1671).

120 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

They studied the bleeding of fresh-cut truncheons of
birch and sycamore, and also of roots of the same trees.
When the truncheon was held vertically, it might be
made to bleed at either end. Water supplied by means
of a cell of wax to the upper end of a truncheon of birch
could be made to run out at the lower end, and this
happened whether the truncheon was held in its natural
position orinverted. The temperatures are only casually
mentioned, and the same work had afterwards to be
repeated with greater exactness. They showed that
“sap” exudes, not only between the bark and the
wood, and from the “ pricked circles” [of dotted ducts]
“between the coats of the wood,” but also from the
‘very body of the wood.” They also investigated the
flow from holes bored in a birch and a sycamore.

Many years later Ray, in his Wesdom of God mani-
fested in the works of the Creation (1691), adds this
interesting note :—‘ That there is a regress of the
Sap in Plants from above downwards, and that this
descendent Juice is that which principally nourisheth
both Fruit and Plant, is clearly proved by the experi-
ments of Seignor Malpighii, and those of an ingenious
Country-Man of our own, Thomas Brotherton, Esquire,
of which I shall mention only one, that is, if you cut
off a ring of Bark from the Trunk of any tree, that Part
of the Tree above the Barked Ring shall grow and
increase in Bigness, but not that beneath.” The reader
who turns to Malpighi’s Anatome Plantarum in order
to see what the experiments were by which he established
the existence of a descent of the sap, will be disap-
pointed ; it was not by experiments but by arguments
that Malpighi reached his conclusion.?

1 Phil. Trans. No. 187. 2 Anat. Plantarum, pp. 38-9.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 121

THE METHODUS PLANTARUM

A great part of this little book is occupied by tables,
in which the families are laboriously compared with
respect to a number of characters.

Long before 1682 real progress had been made a
a natural system of flowering plants. Ray was of
opinion that the best of the Smilies (“summa genera ”)
inherited from earlier botanists were the Fungi,
Mosses, Algee, Ferns, Umbelliferee, Labiates, Borages,
Stellates, Leguminosee, Pomiferse, Composites (in three
divisions), Bulbous plants, Grasses and Grass-like plants
(united).!_ He might have included the Crucifers, which
were usually kept more or less together, and some others.
Botanists of every age had informally and without
attempt at definition recognised, as country-folk still do,
poppies, mallows, pines, nightshades, &c. Ray did not
succeed in making permanent additions to the number.
Nevertheless his life-long exertions were not in vain,
for as we shall see, he was able (1) to name and charac-
terise the Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, and (2)
to discover an important principle of natural classi-
fication, which was afterwards to guide the practice of
Linneeus.

It was no doubt from Malpighi that Ray got the
notion of a difference in seedlings, which might serve to
divide the flowering plants into large sections. In his
tract De Seminum Vegetatione Malpighi had described
and figured the seedlings of cucumber, French bean,
common bean, pea and wheat.’ It is probable that Ray
studied in gardens the germination of many common

1§ome of these, e.g. the umbellifers, leguminous plants, bulbous plants and
two divisions of the composites had been more or less clearly recognised by the
ancients.

2See also Anatome Plantarum, p. 77.

122 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

plants From a collection of examples, no doubt very
inadequate, he drew a sweeping inference, which wider
knowledge has luckily confirmed, and gave definiteness
to L’Obel’s unnamed series of grasses, bulbous plants and
the like, a series hitherto characterised only by the form
and venation of the leaves. It was not till the second
edition of his Methodus (1703) that he gave the names
of Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons to his new divi-
sions.” Even then, he did not make them primary
divisions of flowering plants, for he clung to the last to
the ancient separation of trees and herbs. He remarks,
however, in the edition of 1703, that the distinction of
monocotyledons and dicotyledons might be extended to
trees, if it should appear that palms differ from other
trees in the same way that monocotyledonous herbs
differ from other herbs.

Ray’s contribution to the philosophy of natural classi-
fication consists in this, that after trying a variety of
expedients, some of them very unpromising, he at last
recognised that single-organ characters often break up
natural groups. He found, for instance, that he had at
one time relied too exclusively upon the fruit; the
palms, which constitute a truly natural group, may bear
either a succulent berry, or a drupe with a hard stone.
Rivinus, going solely by the flower, had unnaturally sepa-
rated Tormentil from the other Potentillas, Echium from
the Borages, &c. Tournefort had relied too exclusively
on characters taken from the corolla; Hermann on the

1 Ray’s mention of the variety of structure exhibited by the cotyledons, and
his advice that his readers should study for themselves the contrivances of the
germinating seed, imply personal knowledge on his part. His definite state-
ment that bulbous plants have only one cotyledon (Synopsis Stirpiwm, 2nd ed.
1696) would be unjustifiable if he had never verified the fact.

? The distinction is recognised in the table on pp. 56-9 of the first edition of
the Methodus, where the flowering plants are divided into “‘foliis seminalibus
binis,” and ‘‘singulis aut nullis.”

RAY AND WILLUGHBY . 123

divisions of the seed-vessel. Ray, in a late stage of his
career, found it better to take his characters wherever he
could find them, from flower, fruit, seedling, or anything
else.’ Whatever logic might seem to teach,? there were
natural affinities which must on no account be violated.
“Ab una parte quacunque, sive Flos ea sit, sive Fructus,
non posse Plantas omnes in Genera seu Classes dividi,
ita ut nulla vis Nature inferatur, hoc est, ut quee mani-
feste cognates sunt non separentur, nec que alien
consocientur.”* When he said‘ that a perfect method
is not to be expected, “cum natura (ut diximus) intra
limites Methodi cujuscunque coerceri repugnet,” he was
feeling after the truth which Linneus was not long after
to express more clearly :—‘‘ Que in uno genere ad genus
stabiliendum valent, minime idem in altero necessario
preestant,” and “Scias characterem non constituere genus,
sed genus characterem.” ®

The great fault of Ray’s different classifications of
plants is of course the retention of the division into
trees, shrubs and herbs. Jung® and Rivinus had shown

1 Reply to Rivinus and Tournefort (1696).

2J. D. Titius, professor of mathematics and physics at Wittenberg, who
was also the first to announce that what is called Bode’s law of planetary
distances, objected to the employment of heterogeneous characters in Linnzeus’
Systema Nature, because it conflicted with the rules of sound classification
(De divisione animalium generali, 1760). Darwin, by showing that natural
classifications all rest upon one and the same property, viz. affinity, due to
common descent, nearer or more remote, reconciled the claims of practical
systematists with logic (Origin of Species, Chap. XIII).

3 Preface to Methodus Plantarum, 2nd ed. 1703. Linnzus was evidently too
concise when he said that Ray from a Fructicist became a Corollist (Phil.
Bot. §59); in his last years Ray strove to detach himself from these and all
other sects. :

4 Hist. Plant. Vol. I, p. 51. 5 Phil. Bot. §169.

6 Joachim Jung, physicist, botanist and in the end schoolmaster at Ham-
burg (1587-1657), exerted a distinct and beneficial influence on the teaching of
botany, His Doxoscopie Physcice Minores and his Isagoge Phytoscopica were
published by pupils after his death. Jung’s improved botanical terminology,

124 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

how unnatural was the separation of, for example, the
arboreal from the herbaceous Leguminose, but Ray,
though he admitted the similarity of structure, could
never bring himself to discard a division so obvious and
so generally received.1 In the same way he refused to
separate the cetaceans from the fishes, although he was
well aware of the important peculiarities which they
share with quadrupeds.2 Buffon is the only naturalist
of eminence who has since maintained that system must
conform to common usage, instead of guiding it. Ray
strangely asserted that while trees and shrubs are
furnished with winter buds, herbs are not.

Whatever his deficiencies, Ray did a useful service to
systematic botany by gathering up all that he found
valuable in his predecessors, producing thereby the
best arrangement of plants hitherto published. Long
afterwards it facilitated the more lasting system of A. L.
de Jussieu.

THE HISTORIA PLANTARUM

is a vast compilation, a proof no doubt of Ray’s industry
and candour, but little memorable on other grounds.
The accounts of exotic plants, taken from Marcgraf,
Bontius and many other authors, are quite unreadable.
The introduction expounds the structure and physiology
of plants, as understood in the latter part of the seven-
teenth century. lLinnzeus studied this introduction with
based upon a far sounder knowledge of structure than had hitherto prevailed,
was made known to Ray by Samuel Hartlib, 4 young German, who also
diligently propagated the teaching of Comenius (Cat. Camb. Plants, p. 87).

Ray adopted some of Jung’s reforms in his Historia Plantarum, and Linneus
in a later generation drew valuable suggestions from the same source.

1The ancient division reappears in Tournefort (Institutiones rei herbarie,
1700) and Magnol (Character plantarum novus, 1720) and was only finally
expelled by Linnzus.

2 Supra, p. 112.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 125

care, and Cuvier thought that it might be worth reprint-
ing separately. But historical inquiry has now cut
deeper channels, and the only passages which the reader
of the History of Plants finds valuable are those in
which Ray states his own opinions on questions which
were then occupying the attention of botanists for the
first time.
Sexuality of plants

In 1686 Ray was not fully persuaded of the sexuality
of plants." He says of the stamens that their use is
doubtful; some thought them merely ornamental; others
(Malpighi) that they eliminated matter detrimental to
the seed; Grew, however, had maintained that they
effect the fertilisation of the seeds. Ray supports Grew,
pointing out that some animals, e.g. fishes, are herma-
phrodite, and fertilise their eggs without congress, thus
furnishing an analogy with the majority of flowering
plants. Some plants too are clearly sexual (date-palm,
willows, nettle, &c.). Though he inclines to Grew’s
opinion, Ray does not consider it proved as yet :—‘“‘ nos
ut verisimilem tantum admittimus.” In his Synopsis
Stirpium (1690) and his Sylloge (1694) he shows him-
self fully convinced that the stamens are really male
organs.

Defimtion of a species

Ray considers the coming-up true from seed (“distincta
propagatio ex semine”) to be the mark of a distinct
species, which would make true species of many plants
which are known to have been produced in our gardens.
Elsewhere he unwillingly admits that degeneration or
transformation of species occurs, if the testimony of
persons believed to be worthy of credit is to be

received.2
1Vol. I, p. 17. 2Lib. I, Ch. XX, XXI.

126 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

THE SYNOPSIS STIRPIUM

is the first systematic account of British plants, the
first British flora in the modern sense of the word.
The old herbalists had included all the plants which
they could find, either in field or garden. William How
(Phytologia Britannica, 1650) restricted himself to
native species, but adhered to an alphabetical arrange-

ment, as did Ray in his Catalogus Planta nglie
(9676). In the Synopsis the plarts are arranged

“according—to his notion of their affinities, and he
scrupulously exclude ubtful natives. The Synopsis
soon became the manual of field-botanists, and the,

model of all later floras. After Ray’s death it was
re-edited by Dillenius (1724), and translated into
English by Wilson (1744). Hudson’s Flora Anglica
(1762) was the first to adopt the Linnean arrangement
and rules.

Ray gives no synoptic tables, and his book must have
been troublesome to work by. His “genera” are for
the most part what we should call families, or aggregates *
of families. The smallest collections of species which he
recognises (our genera) are left undefined, nor do they
always receive distinctive names. Thus the clovers are
ealled Trifolium, but in another part of the book wood-
sorrel and buckbean receive the same name.

Two examples of Ray’s descriptions follow; the
mixture of Latin and English is singular.’

“ Erysimum latifolium Neapolitanum, Park. [Parkin-
son], latifolium majus glabrum, C.B. [Caspar Bauhin}.
Irio levis Apulus Eruce folio, Col. [Columna].
Smoother broad-leaved Hedge-Mustard. Circa Londinum
variis in locis; as between the City and Kensington in

1As a rule, English is used only for the localities.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 127

great plenty, also about Chelsey. After the great Fire in
London, in the Years 1667, 1668, it came up abundantly
among the Rubbish in the Ruines. I have also observed
it elsewhere, as about the House of my honoured Friend,
Edward Bullock, Esq. at Faulkbourn in Essex ; also on
the Walls of Berwick upon Tweed [where it still grows].

“This hath small yellow Flowers, and cods [pods]
longer by much than those of the common Erysimum,
not clapping close to the Stalk, as in that, but standing
out from it; it’s also a much lesser and lower Plant.”
[This plant is still called London Rocket; it is the
Sisymbrium Irio of text-books. ]

Our second example is Ray’s description of Jacob’s
Ladder :—“ Valeriana Greca, Ger., Park. [Gerard,
Parkinson]. Greeca quorundam, colore ceruleo & albo,
J.B. [John Bauhin], cerulea, C.B. [Caspar Bauhin],
Greek Valerian, called by the vulgar, Ladder to Heaven,
and Jacob’s Ladder [Polemonium ceruleum]. Found
by Dr. Lister in Carleton-beck, in the falling of it into
the river Air; but more plentifully both with a blue
flower and a white about Malham-Cove, a place so
remarkable, that it is esteemed one of the Wonders of
‘Craven. It grows there in the Wood on the left hand
of the Water, as you go to the Cove from Malham plenti-
fully ; and also at Cordil [Gordale] or the Whern, a
remarkable cove, where comes out a great stream of
water, near the said Malham.

“Foliis longis pinnatis Vicie in modum, floribus
amplis deorsum nutantibus, vasculis in terna loculamenta
divisis ab aliis hujus generis differt [the “genus” is
Ray’s very miscellaneous Pentapetalze vasculiferee].”

Bits of curious information abound in the Synopsis.
Ray has remarked the occurrence of sea-plantain in,
inland parts of Cornwall and the bishopric of Durham ;

128 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

also the capillary submerged leaves of Sium and
Sagittaria, which easily escape notice. We are told
that lycopodium powder was used in the manufacture
of fireworks, the ashes of the female fern for scouring
cloth, and kelp for glass-making.

RAY’S ENGLISH PROVERBS

In the grave and laborious life of John Ray we find
very few indications that he knew how to amuse him-
self. His travels, for instance, are relentlessly instructive.
Some little idle time, as he would no doubt have reckoned
it, he bestowed upon a Collection of English Proverbs
(1670), and we may hope that his wrinkles were now
and then relaxed as he wrote down such sayings as
these :—

“Grantham gruel, nine grits and a gallon of water.” !

“Stay, quoth Stringer, when his neck was in the
halter.” ?

“Cut off the head and tail, and throw the rest
away.” §

“Put a miller, a weaver and a tailor in a bag and
shake them; the first that comes out will be a thief.”

THE BOOK CALLED “RAY’S TRAVELS”

Library catalogues reckon as one of Ray’s works a
Collection of curious Travels and Voyages (2 vols.,
8vo. Lond. 1693), with which, I believe, he had little
to do. Comparison with Belon’s Observations des
plusieurs singularitez, &c. first led me to suspect that
Ray could not have written this meagre and unintelli-
gent summary. The title-page seems to announce Ray
as the author, but this is a mere matter of typography.
The words—“ By John Ray, F.R.S.,” which are promin-

1P, 319, 2P. 82, 3P, 346. “P. 85.

RAY AND WILLUGHBY 129

ent, immediately follow upon Three Catalogues of such
Trees, Shrubs and Herbs as grow im the Levant,
which are a very subordinate part of the book, and
the booksellers’ preface claims no more than these three
catalogues as Ray’s work, while the actual compilers of
the Collection are named on the title-page. Smith and
Walford, the publishers, published for Ray, and no
doubt employed him to make the catalogues. If they
had submitted their title-page to him in manuscript, he
would have found nothing to object to. The prominence
given to his name in printing may have been meant to
catch purchasers."

The account of Ray’s own travels in Germany, Italy
and France is entitled Observations, topographical,
moral and physiological, made in a journey, ce.
8vo. Lond. 1673.

ESTIMATE OF RAY

Natural history unquestionably owes a great deal to
Ray. During his long and strenuous life he introduced
many lasting improvements—fuller descriptions, better
definitions, better associations, better sequences. He
strove to rest his distinctions upon knowledge of struc-
ture, which he personally investigated at every oppor-
tunity. No doubt he was old-fashioned in some things,
clinging for example to the retention of the cetaceans
among the fishes, and to the division of the flowering
plants into trees, shrubs and herbs, after it had become
clear to his mind that such concessions to usage were
scientifically indefensible. His greatest single improve-
ment was the division of the herbs into Monocotyledons
and Dicotyledons.

Zoological and botanical systems owe comparatively

1Derham’s Life explains the origin of the book.
I

130 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

little to individual lawgivers ; they have been built up
piecemeal by the incessant proposal of amendments and
the retention of such as proved satisfactory in practice.
Without claiming for Ray that he possessed a genius for
the discovery of hidden relations, we may rank him as
the worthiest representative, with respect to knowledge
at least, of systematic natural history in the seventeenth
century. He made things much easier for Linnzus, as
did Linnzeus in his turn for naturalists who now smile
at his mistakes. Both were capable of proposing hap-
hazard classifications, a fact which need not surprise us,
when we reflect how much reason we have to suspect
that the best arrangements of birds, teleostean fishes,
insects and flowering plants known to our own genera-
tion need to be largely recast.

MARTIN LISTER
1638-1712

Historie animalium Anglie tres tractatus...de araneis...de cochleis
tum terrestribus tum fluviatilibus...de cochleis marinis. 4to. Lond., Ebor.
1678-81.

J. Godartius of Insects, done into English... with notes. 4to. Lond.
oe Conchyliorum. Fol. Lond. 1685-92.

Lister came of a Yorkshire family, which held the
manor of Thornton-in-Craven. He entered St. John’s
College, Cambridge, in 1655, and was made fellow in
1660. Ray was teaching at Cambridge during these
years, and his example was no doubt influential in
causing Lister to occupy himself with natural history.
Being intended for the medical profession, he betook
himself to Montpellier, and falling in with Ray at that
place, shared his journey through France. In after-
life they were frequent correspondents, and it was no

LISTER 131

doubt by arrangement with Ray that Lister undertook
to study spiders and shells, in furtherance of the great
project of a general natural history of plants and
animals. Lister married the daughter of a Yorkshire
landowner, and lived for some years at Carlton, near
Skipton. During this time he seems to have been
fond of rambling over the Craven hills, observing the
fossils of the limestone, the mollusks, spiders, insects
and plants. Local naturalists still recall his discovery
of Cyclostoma elegans at Thorp Arch on the Wharfe,
and at Burwell in Lincolnshire, of Spherium rivicola
at Doncaster, and of the fossil Aviculopecten of the
lower coal-measures. In 1670 he began to practise
as a physician at York, and in the same year was
elected into the Royal Society. He continued to busy
himself with natural history, paying attention also to
antiquities, tracing the Roman wall of York and writing
a description of the multangular tower, besides collecting
altars, coins and other objects of curiosity. In 1683 he
removed to London, and there became a fashionable
physician; he made one of the “medicorum chorus,”
which surrounded Charles II during his last illness;
in 1698 he was attached to Portland’s embassy to
the French court, and at a later time served queen
Anne as second physician. Professional work withdrew
him from all close study of natural history after his
removal to London.

In his younger days Lister was an accurate observer,
by no means disinclined to speculation. He stimulated
faunistic work in England, and threw out from time
to time a sagacious hint or a profitable criticism. A
few detached notes will sufficiently indicate the nature
of his contributions to biology.

132 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

Gossamer

He tells how a spider while fabricating her web may
suddenly cease working, and turning the hinder end of
her body towards the wind, dart out a thread, which in
a moment attains a length of some fathoms; at last the
spider leaps into the air, and the thread carries her away.
Cases are quoted of both old and young spiders sailing
on their threads; some of the threads are not simple,
but “snarled,” and form woolly locks. The following
passage from a letter to Ray, Jan. 1670, has become
well known by frequent quotation. “As to the height
they [gossamer spiders] are able to mount, it is much
beyond that of trees, or even the highest steeples in
England. This last October the sky here upon a day
was very full of webs; I forthwith mounted to the top
of the highest steeple in the Minster, and could thence
discern them yet exceeding high above me.”

Ichneumons

Lister was clear that the ichneumons bred in cater-
pillars were the offspring of ichneumon-parents. He
had seen ichneumons lay their “young” [eggs] in
the very egg-cake of spiders, or pierce galls to reach
the maggots within. Goedart had said, in accordance
with prevalent belief, that an animal may be generated
of a fat juice, but Lister corrects him :—“ There is but
one way,” he says, “that of animal parents.” ®

Insect Hairs
“Naked caterpillars are a more acceptable food
to birds than such as are hairy, as I have found by

1 Phil. Trans. No. 50 (1669).

2 Translation of Goedart on Insects, pp. 5, 64. Lister made the mistake
of supposing that the piercing instrument of the ichneumon was the tongue.

LISTER 133

experience in feeding redbreasts; I guess the reason
to be that the hair is noxious to their stomachs. And
indeed it is my opinion that the vesicating faculty of
insects is much more in the hair than in any other
part; I, having blown into my boxes, where sometimes
I kept a sort of hairy Cimices, had in a few minutes
after all my face blistered. These naked, and therefore
more innocent caterpillars, by the instinct of nature,
seek to preserve themselves by getting underground
in the daytime, when the birds are stirring.” ?

Frozen Caterpillars

“T can witness that in the depth of winter and in
very deep snow I have found both caterpillars and
hexapod worms lying upon the snow, and therefore
have crawled out upon it. I say these caterpillars
were so hard frozen that thrown against a glass they
made a sound like stones, but put under the glass and
set before the fire, did quickly crawl about, and bestir
themselves nimbly to get away.” ?

Proposed Soil or Mineral Map

Lister proposed? to mark on a map the boundaries
of what we should now call the different geological
formations. Taking his native county of Yorkshire as
an example, he indicated definite tracts which could
be laid down :—1. the wolds; 2. the moors with their
beds of sandstone; 38. Holderness; 4. the western
mountains. ‘Such upper soils,” he says, “if natural,
infallibly produce such under minerals, and for the
most part in such order.” The first actual geological
maps were published by Christopher Packe (country

1 Trans. of Goedart, pp. 53-4. See also supra, pp. 107, 110.
2 Trans. of Goedart, p. 36. 3 Phil. Trans. (1684).

134 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

round Canterbury, 1743), Guettard (northern France,
1751), Fiichsel (Thuringia, 1762) and especially Guet-
tard and Monnet, Atlas descriptif et munéralogique
de la France (Fol. Paris, 1780).

The Nature of Fossils

Like some other Cambridge naturalists,? Lister specu-
lated freely concerning the nature of fossils. He doubts
whether what he calls “cochlites,” (fossil shells) had
ever formed part of living animals, because (1) some
of them exceed in size all shells found in our seas.
(2) They occur just as much in inland as in maritime
places. (3) They are formed of mere stony substance.
(4) They are often imperfect. He adds that some had
conjectured that the living animals of such cochlites
may some day be found at great depths in the sea.?

1Geikie, Founders of Geology, 2nd ed., pp. 449-55, etc.

?Cudworth’s Intellectual System (1678) expounds a theory of the origin of
fossils which strikes us as amazing when we reflect that it was put forth in
the life-time of Newton, Leibnitz and Boyle.

3 Hist. Anim. Angl.

SECTION V. THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

ROBERT HOOKE
1635-1703

Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of minute bodies made
by magnifying glasses, with observations and inquiries thereupon. By R.
Hooke. Fol. Lond. 1665.

WE now reach a point in the history of biology at which
the microscope becomes an important instrument of
research. Hooke, Malpighi, Grew, Swammerdam and
Leeuwenhoek constitute a group of seventeenth-century
naturalists who may be called the Minute Anatomists.
All of them, either regularly or frequently, investigated
minute objects, and their ordinary instrument of research
was the microscope. They were not properly histologists,
for they studied entire animals and plants as readily as
tissues; they might be zoologists, botanists, or physi-
ologists, as well as minute anatomists; opportunity
chiefly directed the course of their work; they were
little given to experiment (Swammerdam is the most
notable exception), and were greater as observers than
as thinkers. Hooke (in his natural history work; he
was much more than a naturalist) and Leeuwenhoek
might be called micrographers; they changed the object
continually, turning from a nettle-leaf to the eels in
vinegar, or from an insect to a crystal, as the fancy took

136 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

them ; they loved to work out special mechanisms, the
sting of a bee, the barbs of a feather, the claw of a
spider, the spore-case of a fern ; in a word, their biology
was unmethodical. The work of Swammerdam, on the
other hand, exhibits concentrated effort, while Grew,
a man of far inferior power, devoted himself almost
entirely to the structure of the higher plants. In the
eighteenth century, when the microscope had become an
ordinary biological appliance, the best of the naturalists
who employed it set narrow limits to their inquiries ;
Lyonet, for example, was accustomed to proceed from
one definite investigation to another one of the same
kind.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE MICROSCOPE

Perhaps the first mention of anything that can be
called a magnifying glass is to be found in Seneca, who
speaks of a glass ball filled with water, and used to make
small letters larger and clearer. A passage in Pliny,
which has been thought to describe Nero’s emerald lens,
relates, not to a lens, but to a mirror. Prof. Govi, an
eminent Italian physicist, who has carefully examined
all the accessible evidence,’ finds no mention of crystal
lenses earlier than the Opus Majus of Roger Bacon
(1276), where they are described as instruments “ useful
to old men and to those whose sight is weakened, for
by this means they will be able to see the letters
sufficiently enlarged, however small they may be.”
Govi considers Roger Bacon to be the inventor of
convergent lenses, and therefore of the simple micro-

1L, Annet Senece ad Lucilium Naturalium Questionum Libri, I, vi, 5.

2The Compound Microscope invented by Galileo (Atti R. Accad. Sci. Fis.
Nat. Napoli, Ser. II, Vol. II, 1888. Translated in Jour. Roy. Micr. Soc.
1889, pp. 574-598). The present account of the discovery of the microscope
is based upon this memoir.

HOOKE 137

scope. Spectacles were evidently familiar to Chaucer '
and Lydgate.? Telescopes were invented in Holland
about the year 1608. Galileo soon heard of them, and
proceeded to make some for himself, with which he
discovered, in 1610 or shortly after, the satellites of
Jupiter, the phases of Venus and the mountains of the
moon. He seems to have immediately perceived that
the telescope might be transformed into an instrument
for the enlargement of minute objects. The narrative
of a Scotchman, named Wodderborn, then resident in
Rome, quotes from Galileo’s own mouth the description
of an insect’s eye, when magnified. The Dutch micro-
scopes of Drebbel came several years later.? ;

By 1625 there were many working opticians in
Holland, Paris and London,‘ who made compound
microscopes in a variety of forms, some very elaborate,
but all faulty and cumbrous. Simple lenses, very
diverse in style as in magnifying power, came to be
more and more favoured by working naturalists, and it
was with these that the best researches of the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries were carried out.

Hooke was distinguished, even as a boy, by his
mechanical genius.5 He was educated at Westminster
School and afterwards at Oxford, where he became
known to Wilkins, Seth Ward and Willis. In 1654
Robert Boyle came to reside at Oxford, and employed
Hooke first as his instructor, afterwards as his assistant.

1Tale of the Wyf of Bathe, v. 1203; Squier’s Tale, v. 234.
2 London Lickpenny, st. 7.

3 Some authors attribute the discovery of the compound microscope to the
Dutch optician, Zacharias Janssen, and put the date as early as 1590.

4Descartes tells of the opticians of Paris; most of Drebbel’s microscopes
were made in London.

5See his Life, by Richard Waller, prefixed to his Posthwmous Works, 1705,
and the notice by Miss A. M. Clerke in Dict. Nat. Biog.

138 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

In 1662 Hooke was appointed Curator to the Royal
Society, which had been founded two years before ; his
duties were defined in these words :—‘“‘to furnish the
Society every day they meet with three or four con-
siderable experiments, expecting no recompense till the
Society get a stock enabling them to give it.” Hooke
seems to have performed faithfully his part of this
exorbitant bargain. The numerous experiments de-
manded were performed; and performed “with the
least embarrassment, clearly and evidently.”?

Hooke was ready to attack by reasoning or experiment
every kind of physical question, and the list of his dis-
coveries or anticipations is a long one. He invented
air-pumps, diving bells, micrometers, hygroscopes, arith-
metical machines, triple writing machines, wind-gauges,
rain-gauges, watch-movements, a screw-divided quadrant,
and a variety of optical instruments. He was also an
architect and a surveyor. His employment as city-
surveyor after the great fire brought him in thousands
of pounds, much more, doubtless, than all his experi-
ments.

Waller tells us that Hooke was despicable in person,
being crooked and low of stature. He went stooping and
very fast. He was of an active, restless, indefatigable
spirit, and slept little to the day of his death, often
continuing his studies all night. His temper was
“melancholy, distrustful and jealous.” He could not
forget that he had anticipated much that others carried
nearer to perfection, and his claims to recognition as the
first discoverer involved him in endless controversy of a
sordid kind. Newton was driven to resolve never to
publish his Optics so long as Hooke lived.

1 Weld’s History of the Royal Society ; Waller’s Life of Hooke.
Several are mentioned in Rouse Ball’s History of Mathematics, Chap. XV.

HOOKE 139

Hooke used glasses “of our English make”; his com-
pound microscope is figured. The body, probably of
brass, was 6-7 in. long, and was screwed by means of a
ball-joint into a ring, which slid on an upright pillar.
The tube of the microscope could be moved in any
direction ; the object was fixed to a jointed arm. The
unsteadiness of the arrangements must have been a
great hindrance to work. Sunlight, diffused daylight or
lamplight was used, the light being reflected, if required,
from paper or ground glass. A glass globe filled with
water or brine served as a condenser; a sub-stage
condenser is also shown, which consists of a conical
tube capable of being filled with water and provided
with a plano-convex lens at each end.

The following passage from the Micrographia shows
how the simple microscopes, which were to play so great
a part in the natural history investigations of the next
two hundred years, were first made. ‘Could we make
a Microscope to have only one refraction, it would,
ceteris paribus, far excel any other that had a greater
number. And hence it is, that if you take a very clear
piece of a broken Venice glass, and in a Lamp draw it
out into very small hairs or threads, then holding the
ends of these threads in the flame, till they melt and
run into a small round Globul, or drop, which will hang
at the end of the thread; and if further you stick
several of these upon the end of a stick with a little
sealing Wax, so as that the threads stand upwards, and
then on a Whetstone first grind off a good part of them,
and afterward on a smooth Metal plate, with a little
Tripoly, rub them till they come to be very smooth ; if
one of these be fixt with a little soft Wax against a
small needle hole, prick’d through a thin Plate of Brass,
Lead, Pewter, or any other Metal, and an Object, plac’d

140 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

very near, be look’d at through it, it will both magnifie
and make some Objects more distinct then any of the
great Microscopes.”

The chapters or sections of the Micrographia are
called Observations, and are numbered in order. Olden-
burg in a notice of the book says that the figures were
drawn by Hooke’s own hand.

Obs. 1. Hooke begins by illustrating the perfection
of the works of nature and the comparative grossness of
the works of man. The point of a needle, a printer’s
full stop, the edge of a razor, a piece of fine lawn, &c.
are shown magnified.

The next sections discuss certain properties of matter
which we may be excused for mentioning without com-
ment. Explanations are offered of what is now called
surface-tension, of Prince Rupert’s drops, of the colours
of thin films, of the nature of light and heat. Heat is
defined as ‘“‘a property of a body arising from the motion
or agitation of its parts.”

Obs. 8. The fused globules obtained by striking fire
with flint and steel are shown.

Obs. 11. The shell of a Foraminifer (Rotalia), from
white sand, is engraved. This is probably the first
figure of any Rhizopod, or indeed of any Protozoan.

Obs. 14. The “figures of snow” are well shown. The
snow was collected on a black hat or a piece of black cloth.

Obs. 16. The structure of wood charcoal is demon-
strated. Hooke shows that the charcoal is traversed by
pores, arranged circularly and also radiately. It is easy,
he says, to blow through a piece of charcoal.

Obs. 17. Petrified wood, &c. are discussed. Hooke
rejects the “ plastic virtue,” which had been supposed to
produce fossil shells.

1 Phil. Trans. Vol. I, p. 28 (1665).

HOOKE 141

Obs. 18. Cork is examined, and a thin section figured.
Hooke describes it as made up of “little boxes or cells,”
which reminded him of a honeycomb. This is believed
to be the first mention of histological cells. The term
has since been thoughtlessly extended from the cavities
to the live particles which they contain. The epidermic
cells of the nettle-leaf (Obs. 25) are more typical of cells
in the extended sense of the word. Hooke does not
distinguish between cells and pores (e.g. of wood). He
looked in vain for passages leading from one cell to
another, or for valves. He could find no cells in seeds,
where Grew and Malpighi soon afterwards discovered
them in multitudes. Cork he supposed to be a kind
of fungus, sucking its nourishment from the bark of
the tree.

Obs. 19. A leaf-fungus (Erisyphe) is engraved, the
sporocarps and stylo-gonidia being shown. Hooke
thinks that this fungus “ may have its equivocal genera-
tion, as I have supposed moss or mould to have,” and
explains its origin by putrefactive and fermentative heat.
Mistletoe, mushrooms and mosses may, he thinks, be
developed in the same way; the putrefaction of slime
and juices may produce worms, the process being aided
by the seminal principles of animate bodies ; new species
might arise casually in this way. Hooke is in all this a
link between Aristotle and Buffon.

Obs. 20. One of the common moulds is figured. Its
mycelium is described as a “ water-mushroom of a multi-
tude of little ramifications, like a thicket.” Hooke is
prepared to trace a gradual passage from fluidity through
orbiculation, fixation, angulization, crystallization, ger-
mination or ebullition, vegetation, plantanimation,
animation, sensation, to imagination! Did the scholastic
philosophy, which he condemns in his preface as a mere

142 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

matter of discourse and disputation, ever pour forth
words without knowledge at such a rate as this?

Obs. 21. A moss is figured with its capsule and
peristome.

Obs. 23. A bit of Flustra, which he calls a seaweed,
is figured. This is probably the first notice of any
Polyzoan.

Obs. 25. Part of the under side of a nettle-leaf is well
delineated. The stinging-hairs are figured and ex-
plained. Epidermic cells are shown, and there is some-
thing very like a nucleus in one of them, but this may
be accidental.

Obs. 27. The hygroscopic property of the beard of
wild oat is described, and a hygrometer is shown, which
may be used “‘for the discovery of the various constitu-
tions of the air as to dryness and moistness.”

Obs. 33. The scale of the eel is beautifully figured.

Obs. 34. The sting of the bee is engraved, but no
hint is given that the parts are separable.

Obs. 35, 36. These sections are devoted to the
structure of feathers. The barbules and their hooks are
shown, and the way in which the bird adjusts the hooks,
by stroking or drawing the feather through the bill,
explained. A peacock’s feather with unconnected barbs
is represented ; its colours are explained by the “ curious
and exceeding smallness and fineness of the reflecting
parts.”

Obs. 37. Hooke here figures the foot of a fly, and
shows how the insect is enabled to walk on vertical
glass. He tells us that the fly “suspends itself very
firmly and easily without the access or need of any such
sponges filled with an imaginary gluten as many have,
for want of good glasses perhaps or a troublesome and
diligent examination, supposed.” This “imaginary

HOOKE 143

gluten” has not been refuted, but confirmed, by the
modern microscope.

Hooke remarks the “strength and agility of these
creatures (insects) compared to their bulk, being, pro-
portionable to their bulk, perhaps an hundred times
stronger than an horse or man.” This way of stating
the case is founded upon a fallacy, which it seems
impossible to dispel, and Hooke’s mistaken comparison
is still reproduced in popular books of natural history.

Obs. 38. The wings of insects are here dealt with,
and the scales of a moth’s wing well figured.

Obs. 39. The plate shows the head of a “ grey drone-
fly,”1 drawn on a large scale. Hooke tells us that
the corneal facets looked like holes, but that by
observing the reflections from their surfaces he was able
to correct the false impression. He shows that the
drone-fly has its compound eyes “bisected,” to use the
modern term, the lower part being composed of lenses
distinctly smaller than those of the upper part.2 Hach
of these “pearls or hemispheres” is, he doubts not, a
perfect eye.

Obs. 42. A good figure of a “blue fly” is given.

Obs. 48. The ‘“ water-insect or gnat” is described.
The larva and pupa figured are those of Culex, but the
fly is what he calls a “tufted or brush-horned gnat,” @.e.
a Chironomus. Much additional information concern-
ing the early stages of these insects was afterwards
supplied by Swammerdam and Réaumur. Hooke com-
pares the gnat-larva hanging by its tail from the
surface-film to an opossum which he had seen in London,
and which, he tells us, had been described by Piso in his

1 The figure is so imperfect that the fly is not determinable.

2Such bisected eyes occur not only in some Diptera but in insects of other
orders; their special use is unknown.

144 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Natural History of Brazil. The opossum sleeps hanging
by its tail, as the gnat-larva also may do for all that we
know. When he comes to give an account of the genera-
tion of the gnat, Hooke shows the same uncertainty as
other naturalists of the time. He is at one moment
ready to believe that the living things which were
supposed to be bred of corruption all proceed from eggs.
But he is also ready to believe that the sun may cause a
parcel of earth to fly on wings in the air, as it causes
water to rise in vapour. Science in 1665 had by no
means freed herself from the tradition of ancient philo-
sophy.

Obs. 46. A plume-moth (Pterophorus pentadactylus)
is shown, but the hind-wing is represented with two
divisions only.

Obs. 48. An animated description of the capture of
prey by a hunting spider is quoted from John Evelyn.

Obs. 50-2. A chelifer and a Lepisma are figured,
probably for the first time. Lepisma is called “the
small silver-coloured book-worm.” The lustre of pearls
is explained.

Obs. 53. A gigantic figure of the flea is given.

Obs. 54. Here is a similar figure of a louse. A mite
is figured, and Hooke remarks that mites are found
among moulds, so that moulds are probably their food,
“spontaneous vegetables seeming a proper food for
spontaneous animals.”

Obs. 56. The coccus of the vine and its eggs are
shown.

Obs. 57. The eels in vinegar are discussed.

Obs. 58-60 treat of inflection of the rays of light,
of the fixed stars, and of the moon.

Hooke relates experiments on the sensitive plant.

‘Pp. 116-121.

HOOKE 145

He attributes the drooping of the leaves or leaflets either
to the circulation of a liquid, or to “a constant pressing
of the subtiler parts of it to every extremity of the
plant.” This is a conjectural anticipation of what is
now called turgidity, which has been experimentally
demonstrated to be a cause of change of figure in plant-
tissues.

MARCELLO MALPIGHI
1628-1694

Marcelli Malpighii Opera omnia. 2 vols. Fol. Lond. 1686-7. Opera
posthuma, quibus prefixa est ejusdem vita a seipso scripta. Fol. Lond.
1697.

The above are often found collected in one or two
volumes. They were reprinted without editing, and the
pagination is not continuous, so that reference is trouble-
some.

Several of the treatises were published separately
during Malpighi’s lifetime. The following are of
special interest to the naturalist :-—De Bombyce. Ato.
Lond. 1669. De Ovo ineubato, 4to. Lond. 1672. De
formatione pulli in ovo. 4to. Lond. 1673. Anatome
Plantarum, 2 pts. Fol. Lond. 1675-9. A preliminary
sketch (Anatomes Plantarum Idea), transmitted to the
Royal Society in 1671, is prefixed to the last-named.

Malpighi was born near Bologna, and studied philo-
sophy at the neighbouring university,’ until the death
of both his parents threw upon him the care of a family
of eight brothers and sisters. He had to arrange for

1See the discussion of Briicke’s treatise on the leaf-movements of Mimosa
(1848) in Sachs’ History of Botany, English trans. pp. 557-8.

2 Bologna has done what it can to show its pride in Malpighi. In the upper
arcade of the quadrangle of the old university an allegorical fresco has been
painted in his honour. There is a Piazza Malpighi and also (but such monu-

ments are fugitive) a Birraria Malpighi.
K

146 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

the disposition of a small family estate, and soon became
involved in a boundary dispute, which was never to be
settled during his lifetime, and caused him great trouble.
These matters occupied him for two years, after which
he returned to the university as a student of medicine
under Massari. Massari was not content with lecturing,
but gathered about him a little company of junior pro-
fessors and students for the prosecution of research.
Malpighi was one of the number, and soon rose from the
position of pupil to that of associate and friend. He
married Massari’s sister, and not long afterwards became
professor of medicine. The opposition of unprogressive
teachers made his position at Bologna uncomfortable,
and in 1656 he was glad to remove to Pisa, where the
Grand Duke of Tuscany had set up a new university on
a liberal scale. Here Malpighi became acquainted with
Borelli, who was appointed professor of mathematics in
Pisa at the same time. Borelli was able to apply his
physics to certain physiological problems, with great
advantage to Malpighi and other students. His treatise
on Animal Mechanics is still full of instruction ; he is
also honourably known in the history of mathematics as
the discoverer of the Arabic MS. of Apollonius. Borelli
and Malpighi learned much from one another, and during
their residence in the same city kept up an intimacy,
which was unfortunately impaired at a later time by
scientific differences. It is related that during one of
Malpighi’s lectures the views put forth offended the
audience to such a point that one after another with-
drew until only Borelli was left. Three years’ residence
in the damp valley of the Arno affected Malpighi’s
health, which was always delicate, and obliged him to
return to the hill-country. In 1662 he was invited to
fill the professorship of medicine at Messina, and there

‘MALPIGHI 147

he worked until he accepted an invitation to return to
Bologna in 1666. Ever since the old days when he had
studied under Massari, he had laboured at anatomy and
physiology, and his discoveries had now made him
famous throughout Europe. In 1667 he received an
invitation from Henry Oldenburg, secretary to the Royal
Society in London, to enter into a regular correspondence
with that young but enterprising body. He gladly con-
sented, and was next year made a fellow. Oldenburg
suggested that he might make observations on the silk-
worm and its economy. To this request Malpighi
replied in 1669 by sending his dissertation De Bombyce,
and in the same year the Council of the Royal Society
resolved :—‘ That the History of the Silke Worme, by
Signor Malpighi, dedicated to the Royal Society, be
printed forthwith by the printers of the same.” This
was the first of a long series of scientific communications
which were at last collected (collected, but not edited, as
Haller truly says), and published by the Royal Society
under the title of the Works of Malpigha.

After thirty years of incessant labour Malpighi’s career
as a scientific explorer came to anend. A letter from
Dr. Tancred Robinson to John Ray, dated Geneva,
April 18th, 1684, relates the destruction of all Malpighi’s
unpublished works:—‘“‘I had several conferences with
S[ignor] Malpighi at Bononia.... He honoured me with
two visits at my inn, where once he took occasion to be
a little angry with Dr. Lister (whose history he had by
him), for his opinion of the origin of stones and shells
resembling animal bodies. Just as I left Bononia, I had
a lamentable spectacle of Malpighi’s house all in flames,
occasioned by the negligence of his old wife. All his
pictures, furniture, books, and manuscripts were burnt.

1 Supra, p. 134.

148 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

I saw him in the very heat of the calamity, and
methoughts I never beheld so much Christian patience
and philosophy in any man before ; for he comforted his
wife, and condoled nothing but the loss of his papers,
which are more lamented than the Alexandrian Library,
or Bartholine’s Bibliothece at Copenhagen.”’ During a
great part of his life Malpighi suffered from calculus in
the kidney, and more than once mentions his poor health
as an excuse for the imperfections of his writings.

In 1691 he was pressed to remove to Rome, and
become physician to Pope Innocent XII, who had known
him during a residence in Bologna some years earlier.
Malpighi very reluctantly consented, but his time of
service was short. He was seized with a slight apoplectic
fit, after which he spent a few weeks in arranging his
papers for the printer. In this interval he lost his wife,
and a second fit carried him off in November, 1694.

His portrait by Tobar, presented by Malpighi himself,
is still in the possession of the Royal Society. It isa
good painting, and shows such a face as might belong to
a thoughtful and amiable man.

THE ANATOMY OF PLANTS

Every biographer of Malpighi feels bound to repeat
the story of the chestnut bough which set him on to
study the anatomy of plants. In the memorial volume?
the incident is related three times in slightly different
forms. In the year 1663 Malpighi, it is said, was
walking in the garden of his friend, the Visconte Ruffo,
when he noticed a broken bough of a chestnut tree.
From the broken end a number of threads projected,
and on examining these with a lens, Malpighi found

+ Correspondence of John Ray, p. 142.
* Marcello Malpight e Vopera sua. Milan, 1907.

MALPIGHI 149

that they consisted of spiral vessels filled with air. This
incident is supposed to have led him on to study the
structure of wood, and the general anatomy of plants.
It has no more claim to belief than the famous legend of
Newton and the apple. In his own narrative Malpighi
drops all the picturesque circumstances, merely saying
that while lodging in the villa of the viscount he
examined the structure of plants, and in a bit of
chestnut wood met with wide air-ducts or trachez,
which he also found in other vegetables. It is probable
that what Malpighi had seen (perhaps in a shaving of
chestnut wood) were not true spiral vessels, which are
found only in the primary wedges, but pitted ducts.
Finding that these ducts were often full of air, which
escaped when the parts were cut under water, and that
in some cases they were packed with cells (the tiillen or
tyloses of modern botanists), he was struck with the
resemblance to the wind-pipe of an air-breathing verte-
brate, the air-tubes of an insect and the air-cells of a
vertebrate lung, and wrote to his friend Borelli that he
had discovered the respiratory organs, which served also
to carry the sap. He further remarked that by snap-
ping a green stem across and drawing the cut ends
gently apart, the spiral thread of the vessels is easily
demonstrated.’ Many generations of succeeding botanists
have been accustomed to verify this fact upon the young
shoot of the elder.” In 1671 he sent to the Royal Society
what he called the Idea or preliminary sketch of an
1 Anat. Plant. Idea, p. 3.

? Sprengel, Cuvier, Sachs, and perhaps other historians of Botany mention
Henshaw as the discoverer of spiral vessels in walnut-wood (1661). The only
ground for this statement, and so far as I can find out, the only record of
Henshaw’s work in botany, is this minute of a meeting of the Royal Society
(July 31, 1661) :—‘‘Mr. Henshaw exhibited the spirals of nut-trees, showing
that they grow snail-wise” (Birch, Hist. of Roy. Soc. Vol. I, p. 37). These
spirals must surely have been hazel-stems strangled by honeysuckle.

150 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Anatomy of Plants. This was followed up a year later
by his fuller treatise, the Anatome Plantarum. Both
were published together in 1675, and a second part of
the Anatome in 1679.

Most of the numerous figures which accompany the
Anatome Plantarum are good, some of them surprisingly
good; we are often astonished that so early an investi-
gator should have seen so much and understood so well
what he saw.! Some of these figures remained unintel-
ligible to botanists until the structures which they depict
were rediscovered in modern times. Malpighi shows
practical good sense in his choice of subjects, and also in
refraining from labour which would not tell. Other
naturalists, Grew for example, would laboriously draw
half or even the whole section of a stem; Malpighi
is satisfied with a small sector.

The text is by no means so good as the figures. False
analogies with animal structures and functions abound,
as in Aristotle and Cesalpini; the spiral vessel reminds
Malpighi of an insect’s air-tube and of a vertebrate
wind-pipe, which, regarded as an exploratory suggestion,
was natural and proper, but he goes on to infer that
spiral vessels are respiratory, calls the wood the thorax
of the plant, and compares the cells of a tylosis with
the air-cells of a lung; he discovers a peristaltic motion
in the spiral vessels; the ovary of the plant is an uterus,
and the cotyledons are placentas. There is a great
deal also of a Natur-philosophie, barren and delusive ;

10ne would like to know for certain whether the beautiful drawings in red
chalk preserved by the Royal Society were executed by Malpighi’s own hand
or not. In three separate places (preface to Anatomes Plantarum Idea,
Anatome Plantarum, and Opera posthuma, p. 18) he speaks of the figures
as having been drawn by himself, but it is of course possible that he handed
them over to a professional artist to be copied.

? But also leaves of the embryo-plant (seminalis plantula),

MALPIGHI 151

he was deeply impressed with what he took to be
the important truth that Nature is one, and that the
same purpose guides her operations in all things.

In 1671 the Cartesian principle that investigation
must proceed from the simple to the complex (a principle
which often passes unobserved into the dangerous shape
of proceeding from the general to the particular) was
prevalent. It led Grew astray, and either this or some
older form of the same doctrine had its effect upon
Malpighi also. He supposed that complex structures
can only be mastered by first mastering the simpler
ones upon which they depend, or from which they
are derived. The study of plants ought, he thought, to
precede that of animals, the study of minerals to precede
that of plants. It was impossible for him to foresee that
minerals could not be studied to much purpose until
chemistry and optics were far more advanced than they
were in 1671, but one would have thought that the
discovery of the circulation of the blood, in which he
had a share, might have opened his eyes to the im-
portance of opportunity and a definite practical purpose,
things which have as much to do with the order of
investigation as relative simplicity. The vascular
mechanism was by no means a simple thing, such as
on the Cartesian principle should have been taken in
hand early, but men felt how immensely important it
was that the course of the circulation should be properly
understood, and they found, by a piece of good fortune,
that this question could be decided without wide
or accurate knowledge of physiology at large, or even of
the physiology of the vascular system.

The maxim which should guide our work is not from
the simple to the complex, nor yet, as some philosophers
have taught, from the more needful to the less needful,

152 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

but from the known to the unknown, from truths either
discovered by steady effort or stumbled on by accident
to new truths springing out of past acquisitions, and
verified by observation or experiment. Biologists, like
other scientific discoverers, have a rugged peak to climb,
and are often urged to try this or that infallible method
of Bacon, Descartes or Comte, a method which generally
turns out to be either misleading or impracticable.
There is but one way—to wriggle up as you can,
sometimes taking to the right, sometimes to the left,
sometimes turning back, because what looked like a
promising opening proves to lead nowhere. It is a great
thing to possess natural aptitude for the work, a great
thing too to be obstinately bent on getting to the top,
but the successful climber often owes much to good-
luck wisely turned to account.

Malpighi had the notion of verifying his conjectures
by experiment, but most of his experiments on plants
were so crudely devised, and so imperfectly followed up
that they came to nothing. When he wished to discover
whether the earth could of itself bring forth plants, he
dug up earth from a depth, covered it with a piece of
silk, and watched to see whether plants would appear
on it. When a question arose as to the use of the
cotyledons, he cut them off to see whether the seedling
would develop without them. He investigated nutrition
through the roots by setting plants in pots, and cover-
ing the earth with sulphur, sea-salt, slaked lime, wine,
&c. Beans were laid in water, which was covered with
oil, to see whether they would germinate. A worker
with a talent for experiment might try such things
as these, but he would not have accepted failure so
easily as Malpighi did, nor would he have printed a
string of experiments which had taught him nothing.

MALPIGHI 153

The Stem of the Flowering-plant.

The figures of the Anatome Plantarum show that
Malpighi had by his own labours attained to a fair
general notion of the herbaceous dicotyledonous stem, of
the woody dicotyledonous stem, and of the stem of maize.
Among other things they illustrate the scattered bundles
of monocotyledonous stems, the annual rings of dicotyle-
donous wood, the medullary rays, the rearrangement of
fibres at a node, dotted ducts (with a spiral fibre instead
of the characteristic marking), and wood-fibres. Cells,
which he calls utricles, sacculi and globules, were
familiar to him, both when filled with cell-sap and dry.
He knew also resin-passages and what he called
“lactiferous” vessels. He had compared transverse
sections of dicotyledonous branches in successive years.?
Sap-wood, which he calls “ alburnum,” was in his day as
now rejected by carpenters, because it did not last.?
He gives a recognisable figure of a tylosis in chestnut
wood,’ together with a fanciful explanation of its
function. The lenticels of a young branch are men-
tioned, though without explanation.* The pits of con-
iferous wood are described as swellings, and tolerably
figured ;° the central opening is not shown.

It is almost superfluous to say that there are many
mistakes, sometimes serious ones. The bast he supposed
to be a special tract of cortical fibres, adjacent to the
wood and gradually converted into wood, a view which
prevailed till the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The cambium he barely noticed, and did not recognise
it as a growing layer. His explanation of the course
of the sap is based on the direction of the bundles of

IPL. VILL, Figs. 32-6. 2P,20. 8 PL IV, Fig. 28.
4Idea, p. 2. 5P. 10; Pl. VI, Fig. 25.

154 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

vessels and rows of cells, and helped out with sup-
positions, which are altogether misleading.

Buds

An interesting and useful object-lesson might be
founded upon Malpighi’s explanations and figures. He
knows that the new buds become visible as soon as the
buds of the preceding year have expanded. He is quite
clear as to the nature of the bud; it is an undeveloped
branch, a “compendium plante.” He gives a long
series of instructive figures to illustrate the development
of leaves and stipules. One misses a full account of the
bud-scales, and some discussion of their nature.

Leaves

Malpighi’s account of the functions of leaves is un-
supported by a single experiment. He is guided by
analogy to the conclusion, that they are organs for the
elaboration and elimination of the crude sap, and are
analogous to the skin of an animal. The comparison
is, he thinks, borne out by the fall of the leaves,
when choked by waste products, which resembles the
periodical casting of an insect’s skin.!_ The sap, purified
in the leaves, supplies, he says, the young shoots and
buds.

Malpighi’s theory of plant nutrition may be summed
up thus:—Water and certain dissolved substances are
absorbed by the roots and ascend by the wood-fibres ;
these materials are elaborated in the leaves, superfluous
moisture being exhaled and waste matter eliminated ;
the elaborated sap passes down the stem by the vascular
bundles and may either supply new growths or be stored

1 Aristotle (De Gener. Anim., V. 3) had compared the fall of the leaf to the
fall of hairs, the moulting of feathers, &c.

MALPIGHI 155

up in the cortex and medullary rays. He does not
speak of a regular circulation of liquids, though this
has been attributed to him. The large vessels of the
wood, which he supposed to be all spiral, conduct
air; the laticiferous vessels are filled with elaborated
sap.?

Stomates

Malpighi’s Anatome Plantarum, Part I (1675)
contains the earliest account of stomates known to me.”
Here we find figures of the sunk spaces in the oleander
leaf, each lodging several stomates, and also of the
stomates of poplar, chestnut, mulberry ; in the mulberry
they are shown attached to the leaf-veins like berries on
stalks. Citron, orange and lemon are said to possess
similar organs. Malpighi did not pursue his inquiries
so far as to discover that stomates are usual in leaves,
nor did he reveal their structure or their function. He
thought it enough to say that they opened to the air,
and discharged either a vapour or a liquid (“inter
utriculos et fibrorum rete, in plerisque foliis peculiares
folliculi seu loculi disperguntur, qui patenti hiatu foras,
vel halitum, vel humorem fundunt”). Had he resolutely
attacked this last question, he would have found it
easily soluble ; nothing more was required than to tear
off a piece of the epidermis, moisten it with a drop of
water, and then examine it with a lens. The reproach
of having missed so great an opportunity does not rest
upon Malpighi alone; his facts, his engraved figures and
his question lay before the whole botanical world for
nearly two centuries without starting effective experi-
mental investigations.

1Cf. Sachs, Hist. of Botany, pp. 458-60.
2 Anat. Plant. pp. 36-7, Pl. XX-XXI, Figs. 106, 107, 109.

156 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

The Flower

The parts of a flower Malpighi calls calyx, with its
foliola, flos with its leaves, stamens, style. The con-
struction of different flowers is illustrated by numerous
well-chosen examples; the accompanying figures are
particularly instructive. He has no true notion of the
function of the stamens, but supposes that the “‘ globules”
(pollen) are a kind of excretion, whose removal purifies
the sap. The outer whorls were removed by Malpighi
from unexpanded flowers, especially tulips, to see whether
in such cases the ovary would ripen; sometimes its
development seemed to be retarded ; sometimes it was
normal. The experiment was of course inconclusive, as
no precautions were taken to prevent pollination from
other flowers, and Malpighi found himself still at liberty to
entertain his favourite speculations, that the outer floral
organs either keep off the sun’s rays, or purify the sap.’

He remarks with astonishment that Nature should
have provided receptacles on the petals, in which to
store honey. The honey-pouches of Crown Imperial
are described.” The honey, Malpighi clearly sees, must
be secreted by the petal, not brought from without.
Naturalists had hitherto explained it as a deposit from
the atmosphere.

Staminate and pistillate flowers (nettle, maize,
cucumber, Amentiferze, &c.) are noted. It shows either
a momentary lack of acuteness or undue haste that the
occurrence of stamens in certain flowers which possessed
no ovary did not lead Malpighi to question his theory
that stamens protect the ovary or else supply it with a
purer sap.

Malpighi traces with some detail the analogy between

1P, 55. 2p, 47; Pl. XXVIII, XXIX, Figs. 162, 167.

MALPIGHI 157

the constituent parts of the flower and the sexual organs
of mammals, identifying the styles with the Fallopian
tubes, the ovary with the uterus, &c.

Double flowers and other monstrous forms are men-
tioned, and the transformation of the petals of the
Polyanthus into foliage-leaves is figured.

Development of the Plant-embryo

We owe to Malpighi the first good account of the
development of the seed and embryo. The minuteness
of his scrutiny into all visible structures is shown by his
many figures of the embryo-sac, its cellular contents
(endosperm), and the attached “vessel” (empty part
of embryo-sac).’ There is a plate of the embryo of the
walnut in various stages of development which is sur-
prisingly good. He also figures and describes the seed-
lings of cucumber, kidney bean, common bean, pea,
wheat, and millet. In the Opera Posthuma we find
careful accounts of the germination of a bean, a
laurel and the date-palm. The figures are such as
an intelligent student, who chose to dispense with the
help of books, might make in a modern biological
laboratory. I select the description of the seedling
date-palm” as an example of his treatment. He begins
with a notice of the hard endosperm, as we should now
call it, which occupies most of the kernel ; this he calls
the placenta, and says that it plays the part of the
cotyledon of wheat or oat; it is composed, he says, of
rows of minute cells, which enclose a small chamber for
the embryo (plantula). When the seed is planted in
the earth, the endosperm softens; the embryo enlarges
and begins to protrude. A long whitish stalk, sur-
mounted by a rounded knob, descends into the soil.

1Pl XXXVII. 2 Opera Posthuma, pp. 72-5, Pl. VII-IX.

158 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

This is, of course, the single cotyledon, which is laid
open to show the radicle and plumule within; the
knob is the organ for absorption of the endosperm.
Malpighi’s figures are excellent, and together with the
figures of a germinating wheat-grain given in the De
Seminum Vegetatione, would furnish matter for a capital
exposition ; the descriptions however are less adequate ;
the two types are not closely compared, and the names
of the parts are not consistently employed. We find no
better account of the development of a monocotyledonous
plant until we come to Mirbel’s memoirs of 1809.7

Tubercles on Leguminous roots.—Valerius Cordus
had already noted that small tubercles sometimes
appear on the roots of lupine; Malpighi? figures them
in haricot and bean. The interpretation of these curious
and important structures belongs to recent plant-
physiology.

Malpighi’s figures and descriptions show that he had
studied objects so various and so little likely to catch
the eye of an ordinary observer as the scutellum of a
grass-seed, the replacement of the radicle of a grass by
lateral roots, the adhesion of earthy particles to root-
hairs, the poppy-fruit with its valves, the flower of an
orchis, the oblique fibres of a leguminous pod and the
spore-cases of a fern.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHICK

The tracts on the development of the chick in the
egg * would thoroughly establish Malpighi’s power as a
biological investigator, even if they had been his only
published researches. The subject was not quite a new
one; Aristotle, Eustachio, Coiter, Fabricius of Aqua-

1Ann. du Muséum, Vol. XIII. 2 Anat. Plant. Pt. II, Pl. II, IV.
3 De Ovo Incubato, 1675 ; De Formatione Pulli in Ovo, 1673.

MALPIGHI 159

pendente, and Harvey had gone before; none of them,
however, had made more than a sketch of this memorable
history. Aristotle had remarked the beating heart of
the early chick and the direct absorption of the yolk.
Fabricius made little further progress; he derived the
embryo from the chalazae (twisted cords of albumen
which project from the yolk-bag). Harvey did much
more; he described the ovary and oviduct of the hen,
the new-laid egg, the sequence of events during the
early days of incubation, and the escape of the chick
from the egg. He also noted the vessels which bring
nourishment from the yolk, and the first steps in the
formation of the brain. Malpighi enjoyed one great
advantage over his forerunners; he was able to use
magnifying glasses in the work. In his memoirs on the
chick we find clearly delineated the vascular area, the
dorsal folds, the mesoblastic somites, the vesicles of
the brain, the amnion and allantois, the development
of the heart (traced in great detail) and the aortic
arches, which in a particular stage are seen to encircle
the gullet. More minute and technical details are also
shown and described.

In his treatise De Formatione Pulli Malpighi notes
that an embryo can be distinctly seen in an unhatched
egg, and figures a second-day chick extracted from such
an egg. He mentions one circumstance which renders
all plain; this particular egg was opened in August, and
in a season of unusual heat, even for Italy, a heat
sufficient, no doubt, for development. Malpighi inferred
that the rudiment of the embryo goes back further than
had been supposed.}

1“ Quare pulli stamina in ovo preexistere, altioremque originem nacta
esse fateri convenit, haud dispari ritu ac in Plantarum ovis” (De Formatione
Pulli, p. 2). This observation formed a foundation-stone of the amazing
theory of predelineation and emboitement (infra, p. 289).

160 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

THE ANATOMY OF THE SILKWORM

The treatise De Bombyce (1669) was the first thorough
account of the structure of any insect. So laborious
did Malpighi find the work of dissecting a small animal,
with no help to the eyesight but a simple lens, that he
suffered afterwards from an inflammation of the eyes.
In spite of this trouble, his delight in the new structures
which revealed themselves to him was so great that he
could not tell it in words. He was the first to observe
the air-tubes and spiracles of arr insect, the many-cham-
bered heart, the silk-glands, the Malpighian glands
(named after him), the gangliated nerve-cord, the repro-
ductive organs and the development of the wings and
legs of the moth. He demonstrated experimentally the
function of the spiracles, showing that when silkworms
are placed in hot water many air-bubbles are given off
from these openings, and that when they are smeared
with oil the insect dies “in the time that one can say
the Lord’s prayer.” He remarked the rhythmical con-
traction and dilatation of the last three segments of the
caterpillar, and doubtfully regards them as respiratory
movements, which they really are.

The figure of the nervous system of the silkworm?
shows that Malpighi did not understand the brain,
which he divided into completely separated halves, nor
the relations of the cesophageal ring. The ventral
ganglia are too few, one being left out. It would be
rather like Malpighi to have drawn the nervous system
from a single dissection, and thus to have fallen into
errors which a less confident man would have easily
avoided. Swammerdam immediately detected these slips,

1 Aristotle had taught that insects do not breathe, although he knew that
an insect dies at once when smeared with oil.

§Pl. VI, Fig. 2.

MALPIGHI 161

and said in his treatise De Respiratione that Malpighi
had omitted the brain, but this was unjust. Malpighi
complained that his anatomy of the silkworm, the first
of its kind, had been censured “rigorose et austere
nimis.” ?

MINOR ZOOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES

Malpighi’s smaller discoveries are so many that it
would weary the reader even to name them. Among
other things he observed the liver-fluke, the cystic stage
of the tapeworm and the development of a feather.
We learn from his diary that he had dissected many
animals which he never found time to describe. The
day before his death he dictated a short account of the
ear of an eagle, and signed it with a trembling hand,
begging that it might be added to his anatomy of the
eagle.’

PHYSIOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES

Malpighi’s revelation of the capillary circulation and
the structure of the lung was his first, or almost his first,
and (there can be little doubt) his greatest discovery ; it
was moreover the first important discovery made with
the help of the microscope.

In the year 1660, shortly after his return from Pisa
to Bologna, Malpighi, now in his thirty-third year,
undertook a re-examination of the structure of the
lung, in company with his colleague Fracassati. The
lung had been hitherto supposed to be a mass of flesh
and blood, infiltrated with air, but Malpighi soon found
reason to suspect that it was really cellular. A washed-

10p. Posth. p. 61, first pagination.
2This last research is of later date than that of Poupart on the same
subject (infra, p. 232).

* Already printed in his letters to the Royal Society, which were issued in

1697 as his Opera Posthuma.
L

162 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

out lung became sufficiently transparent to reveal a
network of fibres or vessels binding together the cells.
When water was injected into the pulmonary artery, a
stream issued from the pulmonary vein. How, he asked,
do the branches of the artery end; by anastomosis with
the vein, or by open mouths, leading into air-filled
spaces, as most physiologists then held? Before seeking
an answer to this question, he wrote an account of his
preliminary inquiries to his master and friend Borelli;
this letter is the first of two on the lungs, which were
printed and became famous. He then betook himself
to close study of the lung of the frog, which is both
unusually transparent and of comparatively simple
structure.

In January 1661, only a few days, it would seem,
after despatching his first letter, Malpighi had important
news for Borelli. He had found in the frog’s lung air-
cells of simple form, enclosed by folds of the lining
membrane, and subdivided by smaller folds. Upon the
edges of all the folds ran blood-vessels of various size.'
In a lung, still connected with the beating heart, he
had seen the blood-stream coursing through finer and
finer branches, and becoming paler as it broke up.
Then the branches seemed to reunite into a vein, but
Malpighi was not certain of the fact until he examined
by the microscope a dried frog’s lung, in which the
finest vessels were naturally injected with blood. It
then became clear to him that the blood never escapes
from the vessels, but passes from artery to vein through
a closed capillary network, and so returns by the
pulmonary vein to the heart. The irregular cavities,
into which, according to Fabricius, the pulmonary

1 Malpighi’s figures show that he did not perfectly understand the details
of structure, and his description has been amended here.

MALPIGHI 163

artery discharged its blood, to be there mingled with
air drawn in from the windpipe, and then collected by
the branches of the pulmonary vein, had no real exist-
ence. ‘The vascular networks of the mesentery and the
bladder of the frog showed the same kind of com-
munication between artery and vein as the vessels of
the lung.

Fracassati’s share in the discovery seems to have been
unimportant, and two of his letters, printed by Mal-
pighi, present him to us as a rhetorical man, not likely
to give much effective help. Malpighi, in his second
letter to Borelli, writes in his own name, and relates
just what he had seen with his own eyes. Borelli
advised instant publication, and a printed account, con-
sisting of the two letters, was put forth with the least
possible delay.

Thus was Harvey’s doctrine of the circulation com-
pleted. Few great discoveries in physiology have been
made so rapidly, though Aselli’s detection of the lacteals
furnishes a fair parallel. Malpighi had a clear question
in his mind, and knew upon what object he could best
direct his lens; to a man thus prepared a few minutes
may well have sufficed.

Malpighi was the first to demonstrate the vesicular
structure of the lung, the sensory papille of the skin,
the minute structure of the liver, kidney and spleen.
He saw what must have been red blood-corpuscles in
the omentum of the hedgehog,” but took them to be fat-
globules.

1De Pulmonibus observationes anatomice. Fol. Bonon. 1661. I have not
seen this rare tract, but only the reprint in Malpighi’s Opera. The De
Pulmonibus and the Opera Posthuma (pp. 4-6, 104) contain Malpighi’s

account of his discovery. Foster’s History of Physiology gives a translation
of the most important passage in the letters to Borelli.

2 De omento, &c. (1665).

164 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

ESTIMATE OF MALPIGHI

Malpighi was above all things a physiologist, but his
physiology was of that unspecialised kind which is pro-
secuted in an age when hardly any branches of science
have been pushed far. From the study of man and the
higher animals he passed quite easily to the study of
insects; plants then seemed to him an attractive and
practicable field of investigation ; he only regretted that
he had not time to attend to chemistry and mineralogy
as well. He was skilled in anatomy, but his distinctive
merit among contemporary physiologists was his con-
tinual resort to the microscope. He was a close observer,
and whatever he saw he pondered over, but experiment
was not his strong side.

His own generation was not competent to follow up
all the work of Malpighi. In human anatomy and
physiology, indeed, a body of trained students already
existed, and his discoveries were not suffered to fall to
the ground. Of his contributions to these sciences I
have not ventured to speak at length; they doubtless
constitute his greatest claim to the respect of later ages.
The treatise De Bombyce inaugurated a new study, that
of insect anatomy, which was to be prosecuted with
greater power by Swammerdam. Malpighi’s admirable
work in embryology was for the time unproductive; only
after a long interval was it resumed by Haller, Wolff,
Pander, and Baer. Notwithstanding the merit of his
observations on the structure of plants, they fell upon
unprepared ground, and it may be doubted whether
they did much real good. Their seeming completeness
and their general agreement with the teaching of Grew,
led men to the totally unfounded belief that the organs
and functions of plants had now been effectively dealt

MALPIGHI 165

with. For another century no one seems to have sus-
pected that experimental inquiries into such elementary
and vitally important processes as the nutrition of green
plants, the transport and storage of food-materials, and
the fertilisation of the ovule, had still almost to be
begun.

If it be true, as I think it is, that Malpighi’s work in
natural history produced no effect answerable to its real
value, it would be instructive to discover the reason.
Influence is gained most easily by those reformers who
neither move fast nor attempt many things at once.
Harvey, Swammerdam, Linneeus, and Cuvier, unlike one
another in so many things, each pursued one purpose
until it was accomplished. Harvey effected the dis-
covery of the circulation, Swammerdam explained the
transformations of insects, Linnzeus adapted the “system
of nature” to new and urgent wants, Cuvier revealed
the structure of many extinct animals, unlike any that
now survive. What else these great men did, and
whether they did anything else, were matters of less
importance. Moreover their discoveries were timely ;
the world was ready to receive them and to turn them
to account. Malpighi, on the other hand, opened out
many new paths, but soon quitted them. He explored
the anatomy of the flowering plant, the development of
the seedling, the development of the chick, the anatomy
of the silkworm, the structure of glands and many other
parts of the animal frame, but this extraordinary fertility
really diminished his influence. Few workers received
from him such practical training as enabled them to
oceupy the territories which he had discovered, and he
became not so much a leader as a pioneer, who planted
his standards so far ahead and so far apart that they
could not serve as rallying-points, but merely as proofs

166 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

that in several different directions he had outstripped
all competitors.

NEHEMIAH GREW

1641-1712

The Anatomy of Vegetables begun. 8vo. Lond. 1672.
The Anatomy of Plants. Fol. Lond. 1682.

The botanist Grew was son to the Puritan minister of
St. Michael’s, Coventry, one of those ejected in 1662.
Like Ray, he was a pious man, who thought it a duty
to trace the hand of God in the visible creation, and it
was this which caused him to attend to the structure of
plants. Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester, one of
the founders of the Royal Society, brought Grew’s work
under the notice of his colleagues, who encouraged him
to print his first book. He removed to London, and set
up as a physician there ; he served as secretary to the
Society in 1677. His communications to the Society
formed the basis of separate publications, and these,
corrected and expanded by further reflection as well
as by hints taken from Malpighi,* were at length
collected into a folio volume, called The Anatomy of
Plants.

The Anatomy of Vegetables begun, which ultimately
formed the first part of the Anatomy of Plants, is an
8vo book of 198 pages, with three folding plates.
Chapter I describes the germinating seed of the garden
bean. Then we go on to the trunk (stem), the germen

1The publications of Malpighi and Grew on plant-structure are sometimes
almost simultaneous, and it is often hard to decide which was the first to
observe a fact of special interest. Questions of priority are not raised by
either ; in the seventeenth or early eighteenth century it was not the practice
to acknowledge help received from other authors. Locke and Newton do not

quote Bacon, nor Galileo Kepler, nor Descartes Kepler or De Dominis, nor
Spinoza Hobbes. Linnezus is very careless about debts of this kind.

GREW 167

(bud), the leaf, the flower, the fruit and the seed before
germination.

Grew’s description of the bean-seed may be called an
object-lesson, one of the first object-lessons that was
ever written. The parts are skilfully displayed and
well figured.

He notes the “vest or coat” of the seed, and the
foramen (micropyle)! against which the tip of the
radicle lies. The foramen “is not a hole casually made,
or by the breaking off of the stalk; but designedly
formed, for the uses hereafter mentioned.” It is found
not only in beans, but in other pulse, and “in many
seeds not reckoned of this kindred.” ‘That this fora-
men ‘is truly permeable, even in old setting-beans, and
the other seeds above named, appears upon their being
soaked for some time in water. For then, taking them
out, and crushing them a little, many small bubbles will
alternately arise and break upon it.” He afterwards
explains that the general cause of the growth of the
bean is fermentation, and that the foramen serves for
the supply of airy particles which excite the fermen-
tation ; it also gives easy issue to particles and steams,
and plays the part of a bung-hole to the new-tunned
liquor in a barrel.’

1The name of micropyle is Tournefort’s. The modern reader may be
puzzled for a moment by Grew’s statement that the micropyle will admit a
‘“small virginal wyer,” but will soon recollect that the virginal or spinet was
the piano of those days.

2Malpighi in his Anatomes Plantarum Idea (p. 9) explains that the micro-
pyle serves for the entrance of moisture. His speculations, like those of
Grew, were refuted when it was shown that seeds whuse micropyles have been
plugged with wax or varnish germinate perfectly well (Turpin, Ann. du
Muséum, Vol. VII). C. J. Geoffroy (Acad. des Sciences, 1711) showed that
the fertilisation of the ovule is effected through the micropyle, though he
erroneously believed that ‘‘le petit grain du poussiére (pollen) peut tomber
naturellement par cette petite ouverture dans la cavité de cette vésicule qui est
Vembryon de la graine.” The pollen-grain was, he thought, the germ of the
future plant.

168 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Within the coat Grew finds the main body of the
seed, and notes the radicle, plumule (“plume”) and
two seed-lobes. Some seeds, like those of corn, are not
divided, but entire; and some few, he says, are divided
into more than two lobes.1_ The embryo is covered with
a cuticle,? within which is found the parenchyma,’ which
is not ‘“‘a mere concreted juice,” but “a body very
curiously organised, consisting of an infinite number of
extreme small bladders.” He finds branching vessels in
all parts of the embryo, which appear in sections as
specks ; and he figures very carefully the vessels of the
seed-lobes. He is aware that in some seedlings (lupine,
&c.) the seed-lobes turn green, and push into the air,
while in others (bean, &c.) they remain shut up in the
seed ; he knows what becomes of the plume and radicle,
and recognises that the seed-lobes are only a particular
kind of leaves (‘ dissimilar leaves,” he calls them).

Grew’s clear and useful account of the structure of the
bean-seed and seedling is sadly marred by his guesses as
to the function of the parts. We have noticed what he
says about fermentation ; his explanation of the sap in
the vessels is equally baseless. It comes, he says, from
without, filters through the seed-coats, becoming fer-
mented in the inner one, enters the parenchyma, and so
gains the vessels of the radicle and plumule.

Plant Cells
Grew, as well as Malpighi, was aware that a young
plant is wholly composed of cells, which he compares to

1 His example is not a pine, but the common cress, whose seed-leaves are
three-lobed.

?In his Anatomy of Seeds (Anat. of Plants, p. 207) Grew shows that in a
soaked bean the cuticle can be separated ; if examined by the microscope, it is
seen to consist of cells (‘‘ bladders ”) ‘‘all radiated towards the centre.”

>The word is not new ; Erasistratus had applied it nearly 2000 years before
to a substance supposed to be poured out from the veins.

GREW 169

the vesicles of bread, and supposes to have originated
in the fermentation of a “coagulum.” Hooke had called
the cells of a parenchyma a “heap of bubbles”; Grew’s
favourite term is “bladders.” He knows that “a
single row or file of bladders, evenly and perpendicularly
piled, may sometimes . . . break into one another and so
make one continued cavity” (p. 118), an anticipation of
Mohl’s discovery of 1831. His notion of the cell-wall,
suggested by the thickenings so frequent in vessels, was
that it consisted of a network of fine threads.

Vessels

Grew discovered and traced the vessels of the bean-
seedling and other plants, but first learned from Malpighi
that some of them possess a spiral thread. He remarks
that spiral vessels never branch, and that they may
extend to great distances. His “lymph-ducts” are
not true vessels, but bast-fibres, &c.

Monocotyledonous Stem

We find a good figure of a transverse section of a
maize-stem, and Grew notes the scattered vascular
bundles, as well as the lack of a distinct bark and pith
(p. 104, Pl. XVIII, Fig. 2).

Resin-passages

He recognises and correctly interprets the resin-
passages in the cortex of a pine-stem (p. 110).

Resistance to Bending of Hollow Structures

The rigidity of a circumferential zone of vascular
bundles, as well as the rigidity of quills and hollow
bones, when compared with solid rods of the same length
and the same weight, is pointed out (p. 23).

170 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Medullary Rays

Grew had a good anatomical notion of the medul-
lary rays of the dicotyledonous stem; he calls them
“insertions,” because they are inserted or wedged into
the wood. He remarks their continuity with the
cortex and pith, their use in bracing together the rings
of the wood, and their emergence from the outside
of the woody cylinder (pp. 12, 20; Pl. III, Fig. 8;
Pl. XXXVII).

Hooks for Climbing

The use in climbing of the hooks of bramble and
cleavers is described (p. 149). Mention is also made of the
wings and feathers of fruits or seeds, and of plants which
spurt or sling away their seeds; in short, Grew gives
a preliminary sketch of the account of dispersal which
Linnzeus was able to furnish in 1751 (infra, p. 322).

Buds

The security of the axillary position, the protection
and economy of space gained by the imbrication of the
bud-scales, and by the folding of the foliage-leaves,
various modes of leaf-rolling, and the defence of leaves
by means of hairs are dwelt upon (pp. 145-9). Grew
points out that buds are formed months before they
expand (p. 157), and mentions the burying of the
sumach-bud in the cortex of the branch (pp. 146-7).
“A bulb is, as it were, a great bud under ground”
(p. 58).

Stomates
He notes the occurrence of “orifices or passports,
either for the better avolation of superfluous sap, or the
admission of air” (p. 153). By a strange oversight he
says that the stomates are found only on the upper

GREW 171

side of the leaf. There is a tolerable figure of the
stomates of a lily-leaf (Pl. XLVIII). It is singular
that Grew does not notice Malpighi’s earlier discovery
of the stomates.

Alternation of Floral Whorls

The relative position of the parts of the flower is
explained; they are not “filed one just over another,
but alternately,” thus admitting of closer packing and
more complete protection of the inner organs (p. 164).

The Flower

In the flower Grew distinguishes the calyx (“ empale-
ment”), corolla (“foliature”), and stamens (“attire”) ;
the pistil he does not consider a part of the flower, but
of the fruit; this had been the view of Theophrastus and
also of the sixteenth-century botanists. He tells us
that the anthers (“semets”) when they burst scatter
their powders, which are a “‘congeries, usually, of so
many perfect globes or globulets, sometimes of other
figures, but always regular” (p. 38). The uses of the
pollen Grew can only guess at; it may serve “ for food,
for ornament and distinction to us, and for food to other
animals” (pp. 39, 40). The “primary and private use”
of the pollen is discussed more fully in the fourth book ;
Grew is convinced that it must be great and necessary.
He has no experimental evidence to bring forward, but
makes one interesting remark. “In discourse hereof
with our learned Savilian Professor, Sir Thomas
Millington, he told me he conceived that the attire doth
serve as the male, for the generation of the seed. I
immediately replied that I was of the same opinion ;
and gave him some reasons for it, and answered some

1 Supra, p. 155.

172 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

objections, which might oppose them” (p. 171).1 Un-
fortunately Grew did not seek to verify his opinion
by experiment. He goes on to say that as every plant
is both male and female (an unwarranted guess) the
attire must discharge other functions as well, such as
the separation and “affusion” of parts (probably
chemical change of some kind). In another passage he
notices what he calls the secondary use of the attire ; it
serves, he thinks, for ornament and for distinction
(of species); further, it provides food for “a vast
number of little animals” (p. 40). Elsewhere he
remarks that pollen-grains “are that body which bees
gather and carry upon their thighs, and is commonly
called their bread. For the wax they carry in little
flakes in their chaps, but the bread is a kind of powder,
yet somewhat moist, as are the said little particles of
attire” (p. 171). Swammerdam had not been able
to discover what bee-bread really was (see p. 192).

The Fructification of a Fern

The sporangium (“seed-case”) of a fern is described
as “girded about with a sturdy tendon or spring,”
whose surface resembles a fine screw; ‘so soon as by
the innate air of the plant or otherwise this spring
is become stark enough, it suddenly breaks the case into
two halfs, like two little cups, and so slings the seed”
(p. 200). The sporangia are barely recognisable in
Grew’s figure (Pl. LXXII). Fern-sporangia had already
been described by William Cole of Bristol (1669).
Valerius Cordus (supra, p. 28) had found reason to
affirm that young ferns spring from the brown dust

Ray in his Wisdom of God (1691) speaks of ‘‘ the masculine or prolific seed
contained in the chives or apices of the stamina,” but like Grew, he had no

clear proof for what he said. Five years earlier he had treated the question
as an open one (supra, p. 125),

GREW 178

on the under-side of fern-leaves. Perhaps he had no
clearer proof to adduce than the springing-up of young
ferns around old ones, and the emission from the fronds
of fine particles, which would naturally be called seeds.
The learned botanists of ancient times had denied that
ferns bear seed, but popular belief in the middle ages
inclined the other way.

The passages just quoted show Grew at his best. It
is natural that he should have mistaken many things.
Like Malpighi, he failed to recognise the cambium-layer
of the stem, which is very excusable. His propensity to
put forth untested speculations sometimes makes us
smile. Thus he explains that sap ascends because its
motion is ascent, and because motion is more noble; he
distinguishes solar plants which twine with the sun
from lunar plants which twine with the moon. In these
things Grew was the man of his generation—a generation
which no one will affect to despise who recollects that it
was also the generation of Swammerdam, Boyle and
Newton.

Grew’s talent really lay in the use of those aids which,
he was sanguine enough to suppose, would render
the microscope almost superfluous, viz. a good eye, a
clear light and a keen knife (p. 107). His reputation
with posterity would stand higher if he could have
laid aside all his philosophy, and imitated his friend
Boyle in testing current interpretations by well-devised
experiments.

In the Philosophical Transactions’ there is a good
account by Grew of the ridges and sweat-pores of the
human hand. He saw the sweat exude from the pores,
and gives good figures of the patterns formed by the
ridges, of a ridge with its pores, &c. Tyson*®a few years

1No. 159 (1684). 2 Anatomy of a Pygmie, p. 12, 1699.

174 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

later observed in the chimpanzee “those spiral lines
which are usually in a man’s.” Grew and Tyson had
between them laid the foundations of a scientific account
of finger-tips, but these hints lay unnoticed for nearly
two hundred years.

JAN JACOBZ SWAMMERDAM
1637-1680

Historia Insectorum Generalis, ofte Algemeene Verhandeling van de Bloed-
loose Dierkens. Sm. 4to. Utrecht. 1669.

Ephemeri vita, of afbeeldingh van’s menschen leven, vertoont in de wonder-
baarlycke historie van het vliegent ende eendaghlevent Haft of Oever-aas, &c.
8vo. Amst. 1675.

Biblia Nature, sive Historia Insectorum... accedit prefatio in qua vitam
auctoris descripsit Hermannus Boerhaave... Latinam versionem adscripsit
Hieronimus David Gaubius. 2 vols. Fol. Leyde. 1737-8.

Swammerdam was born at Amsterdam. His father
was an apothecary, who had expended much time and
money upon a private museum, for which his own trade
and the world-wide commerce of Amsterdam gave special
opportunity. The boy was originally intended for the
Protestant ministry, but when he grew up, he got leave
to study medicine instead. Natural history, which was
afterwards to become his passion, was even in youth one
of his chief occupations, and he collected and studied
insects with enthusiasm. His father, the apothecary,
probably found the services of a zealous young naturalist
very advantageous to the growth of the museum, and
Swammerdam continued to live at home till he was
twenty-four, when he was sent to Leyden as a medical
student. Here he made the acquaintance of the Dane,
Nicholas Stensen, whose name when Latinised became
Steno, and who, in 1661, the very year of Swammerdam’s
matriculation, discovered the duct of the parotid gland.

SWAMMERDAM 175

Regner de Graaf (Graaf of the Graafian follicles) was
another friend of Swammerdam’s student days, but
rivalry embittered their relations before Graaf’s early
death. Stensen, Graaf, and Swammerdam were all
pupils of Franciscus Sylvius (Francois de la Boe), who
professed medicine at Leyden with great distinction
from 1658 until his death in 1672. This Sylvius (who
must not be confounded with the anatomist, Jacobus
Sylvius, who taught Vesalius) was a zealous and skilful
anatomist; he was also one of the best chemists of that
early time. To carry on his studies and enlarge his
experience, Swammerdam next travelled, as was the
rule with young students of adequate means. Perhaps
it was the existence of a great Protestant college’
which directed his course to Saumur (1663), where he
carried on his insect studies. Here, in the year 1664,
he discovered the valves of the lymphatic vessels, and
sent an account of them with drawings to his friend
Stensen. Not long after Ruysch announced the very
same discovery, and Swammerdam was inclined to
believe that his drawings had been shown to Ruysch.
Visiting Paris, Swammerdam became acquainted with
Melchisedec Thévenot, traveller, French ambassador
at Genoa and a lover of science, who brought many
scientific men together at his pleasant villa. Both
Stensen and Swammerdam were hospitably received by
Thévenot, who continued a true friend to Swammerdam
throughout all his subsequent troubles. Amidst the
lively throng which gathered at Thévenot’s house
Swammerdam always remained silent ; his powers were
only revealed when he could be induced to exhibit his
marvellous skill in unravelling the intricacies of insect

1§uppressed, together with the colleges of Die, Vitré, Castres, Orthez,
Sedan, Nismes, and La Rochelle by Louis XIV in 1685. Montauban alone
was allowed to survive.

176 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

structure. On his return to Amsterdam Swammerdam
threw himself seriously into human anatomy, and
worked at the structure of the spinal cord. He also
practised various modes of injection, and became expert
in this difficult art. In 1667 he was made Doctor of
Medicine of Leyden, presenting as his dissertation a
treatise on Respiration.’

In 1668 Cosmo, duke of Tuscany visited Amsterdam,
and was taken to see Swammerdam and the museum.
With delicate tools and a sure hand Swammerdam
repeated a favourite demonstration. Opening a cater-
pillar which was ready to pass into the pupal stage, he
showed the butterfly with its wings, legs and proboscis
packed up within the larval skin. The duke was
delighted, and bid 12,000 florins for the collection, on
condition that Swammerdam would accompany it to
Florence, and accept an appointment in his service.
Swammerdam was at this time vexed with worldly
cares, and the prospect of a secure post, with unlimited
leisure for study, must have had its charms, but he was
Dutch and Protestant, accustomed to think his own
thoughts, especially about matters of religion. Life at
court, and in the service of a Catholic prince, was
impossible for him, and he refused the duke’s offer.
Swammerdam’s friend, the anatomist and physiologist
Stensen, became the duke’s physician, and not very long
after underwent a sudden conversion. He was moved,
not only to embrace the Catholic faith, but to take
orders, and having been advanced to the dignity of a
bishop, was sent back to the Protestant countries of the
north as a missionary. The labours and privations of

1This was at first a brief abstract of Swammerdam’s results in scholastic
form ; it was enlarged in a second edition (1679), and reprinted with annota-
tions by Haller (1738).

SWAMMERDAM 177

his remaining years at least attested his complete
sincerity.

Swammerdam’s General History of Insects was
published in 1669, when the author was thirty-two, and
still entirely dependent upon his father, who began to
grow impatient of the burden. A severe attack of ague
had impaired the naturalist’s health, and from this time
the disease continually returned. He was bent upon
completing fresh insect studies, among the rest, a treatise
on the Ephemera, and a fuller account of the structure
and life-history of the hive-bee than had hitherto ap-
peared. But the father would have no more of these
unproductive labours, and Swammerdam was forced to
promise that he would now give his undivided attention
to medical practice. To conciliate his father, he first
wrote out with immense labour a complete catalogue of
the museum. The ague came back, and Swammerdam
had to go into the country to recruit. It was June, and
the butterflies were abroad. The temptation proved
irresistible, and he relapsed into natural history. How
he propitiated his angry father we do not know, but the
printing of the history of the Ephemera in 1675 points
to further pecuniary assistance. During these troubled
years the laborious observations and exact delineations
which fill the two large folios of the Biblia Nature
were incessantly accumulating. Boerhaave (who did
not, we must note, write from personal knowledge) gives
us a vivid picture of the toil bestowed upon them.
“Swammerdam’s labours were superhuman. Through
the day he observed incessantly, and at night described
and drew what he had seen. By six o’clock in the
morning in summer he began to find enough light to
enable him to trace the minutize of natural objects. He

1¥Foster, History of Physiology, Lect. IV.
M

178 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

was hard at work till noon, in full sunlight, and bare-
headed, so as not to obstruct the light, and his head
streamed with profuse sweat. His eyes, by reason of
the blaze of light, became so weakened that he could not
observe minute objects in the afternoon, for his eyes
were weary.”

Boerhaave describes from Swammerdam’s papers his
methods of work. The dissecting table was of brass,
and had two arms, which could be turned in any
direction ; one arm carried the object, and the other the
lens. Swammerdam’s lenses were of various sizes and
powers. His skill in the use of forceps and scalpel was
surprising. Some of his tools were so minute that he
had to whet them under a magnifying glass. He was
skilful in injection and inflation, Swammerdam knew
how to render anatomical preparations transparent by
balsam, so that the course of the vessels could be traced
without dissection; it was considered an important
advantage that the parts remained soft and flexible.
The tissues, which were often of considerable bulk, were
first soaked in turpentine, for months if necessary.
After long soaking in turpentine, balsam or mastic was
added. A moderate heat was sometimes employed.’

In 1673 Swammerdam came under the influence of
Antonia Bourignon, who is commonly described as a
religious fanatic, and who was bitterly persecuted as
such by the Dutch and Danish Lutherans. Swammerdam
was henceforth guided by her advice, and to some extent
shared her sufferings. At one time he thought of selling
all his insects and preparations, and retiring upon what-
ever income they would yield. But no purchaser could
be found. The duke of Tuscany was approached through

1An account of Swammerdam’s method is to be found at the end of
Schrader’s Observationes et Historie, 12mo., Amst. 1674.

SWAMMERDAM 179

Stensen, but acceptance of the Catholic faith was laid
down as a necessary preliminary, and Swammerdam
declared that he would not sell his soul at a price. In
1675, the very year in which the History of the
Ephemera appeared, Stensen sent to Malpighi some
of Swammerdam’s figures of the silkworm, together with
a short letter:—‘ Swammerdam begs you to receive
kindly these figures,’ since he is about to give up the
study of natural objects. He had undertaken a work of
the same kind as yours (the treatise De Bombyce, 1669),
but has destroyed it, keeping only the figures. He is
seeking after God, but not as yet in the church of God.”
Swammerdam’s father died in 1677, and bequeathed
property to his son.2 But the will was disputed, and
amidst anxieties of every kind, money-cares, religious
controversy, continual illness and disappointed hopes,
the naturalist’s life came to a sad close in 1680; he was
only forty-three.

During his life-time Swammerdam had published,
besides academical theses, a General History of Insects,
a description of the life-history of Ephemera, and an
account of the chameleon. Both the General History
and the Ephemera were afterwards incorporated with
the Biblia Nature.

THE BIBLIA NATURZ

Of the Biblia Nature, as of other works whose excel-
lence lies in the mass of finished detail which they offer,
no account in the least adequate can be given. We have

1 The figures sent to Malpighi may have been those which now appear in the
Biblia Nature, Pl. XXVIII, Figs. i-iii.

2Copies are still extant of the sale-catalogue of the elder Swammerdam’s
museum (143 pp. in Latin and Dutch, 8vo., 1679), and of the collection of
insect-preparations, anatomical preparations, injections, &c., of the son. A
note at the end informs us that both collections were offered for sale at the
same time.

180 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

here the history of the ephemera, the dragon-fly, the
bee, the gnat, ants, the rhinoceros-beetle, the tortoise-
shell butterfly, the cheesehopper, the gall-insects, the
hermit-crab, the water-flea, the tadpole, the snail, the
sepia and many more. Under each we find the life-
history, the anatomy down to the last detail visible by
Swammerdam’s microscope, and in many cases observa-
tions upon allied forms. No delineations so exact and
beautiful as these appeared until Lyonet, seventy years
after the death of Swammerdam, produced his Anatomy
of the Goat-moth. The Biblia Nature is of permanent
interest as a collection of facts, as a monument of
industry and sagacity, and as a measure of the high
level which biological knowledge had attained in the
latter half of the seventeenth century.

We have little information respecting the time and
manner of production of the beautiful plates which
accompany the Biblia Nature. It is not easy to under-
stand how Swammerdam, amidst the distresses of his
last years, should have found money to pay for fifty folio
plates. Did Thévenot find the money ?

Swammerdam bequeathed all his manuscripts and
drawings to his friend Melchisedec Thévenot. The
painter Joubert bought the papers from Thévenot’s
heirs, and sold them again to the anatomist Duverney,
who kept them for many years, talking about a French
edition, but doing nothing. Forty years after Swam-
merdam’s death his chief contributions to natural history
still remained in manuscript, their very existence known
only to a few. At length the famous Dutch physician,
Boerhaave, came to know that Swammerdam’s papers
were still preserved in Paris. He begged his friend
William Sherard, who was about to visit France, to
find out all about them. It was discovered that the

SWAMMERDAM 181

manuscripts still existed, and proofs of some of the
engraved plates were sent for Boerhaave’s inspection.
He bought the whole at a low price, and in 1737-8 had
the satisfaction of issuing Swammerdam’s works in two
magnificent folios, illustrated by fifty-three plates, and
accompanied by a new Latin version by Gaubius of
Leyden. It is not easy to explain how Swammerdam
came to give to any book of his so significant a title as
The Bible of Nature. His purpose of magnifying the
works of God, which appears in the pious ejaculations at
the end of every chapter, may have seemed to sanctify
his labours. Buch der Natur had been the title of
an illustrated book of animals and plants published at
Augsburg late in the fifteenth century.

Insect Transformations

The General History of Insects (1669) includes a
long discussion on the nature of insect transformations,
which was afterwards included in the Biblia Nature.
One main object with Swammerdam was to refute the
mistaken doctrines of Harvey, the great Harvey, whose
account of the circulation of the blood was now generally
accepted. Harvey’s knowledge of development was based
entirely upon his study of vertebrate embryos, and his
account of the development of insects and other animals
then called “bloodless,” was darkened by vain philosophy.
According to him, an insect could not be properly said
to grow; it was a lump of organic matter which had
been stamped with a definite form. Insects, he made
bold to say, were generated by chance, and were not
constant to their kinds. Swammerdam might well be
angry to find notions so preposterous disseminated under
the authority of a great name. He combated Harvey
with all his vigour, and at wearisome length. Insects

182 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

grow, he explains, just as much as any other animals.
Their changes of form are exactly analogous to the
changes by which a frog’s egg becomes first a tadpole
and then a frog. But the frog has blood, and even
Harvey must have admitted that it grows. Swammerdam
loses patience when Harvey attributes to insects a meta-
morphosis which has nothing to do with growth, a kind
of transmutation, like that by which, it was supposed,
a base metal can be changed to gold; an Ovidian meta-
morphosis, such as that by which a flying nymph is
turned to a laurel tree. The development of the
winged insect, says Swammerdam, is merely growth with
change of form, and the wings, legs and proboscis can
be discovered beneath the larval skin long before
the fly emerges. The insect is one and the same
animal throughout and has never been anything but
an insect.

Swammerdam returns to the question again and again,"
explaining how the legs, wings and other appendages of
a butterfly form beneath the larval skin, how they become
visible at the time of pupation, how they are glued down
till they have acquired due firmness, and how, having
cast yet another skin, they become functional when the
butterfly enters upon its free existence.

In the section entitled “ Animal in Animali,”? Swam-
merdam shows how to demonstrate that the butterfly is
contained within the last larval skin. A full-fed cater-
pillar with swollen thorax must be taken and tied by a
thread to a stick ; it must then be time after time dipped
for a moment in boiling water until the skin becomes
loose, when it can be easily stripped off, leaving the

1See Biblia Nature, pp. 34, 578 (tortoise-shell butterfly), 603 (large cabbage-
white).
2 Biblia Nature, p. 603.

SWAMMERDAM 183

butterfly exposed. The expression “ animal in animali,”
we remark, incorporates the very notion which Swam-
merdam had vehemently repudiated in his controversy
with Harvey, where he says as emphatically as he can
that the larva or pupa is not changed into a butterfly ;
it is itself the butterfly in another form.

He protested also against Harvey’s doctrine that the
pupa is an egg, a doctrine which, ill-supported as it is,
still reappears from time to time.

In one place* Swammerdam, after disposing of these
misleading hypotheses, brings out one of hisown. There
is perhaps, he says, no true generation anywhere in
nature ; what goes by that name is merely continuous
growth, a budding out of new parts, the same process as
that by which the legs and wings of the butterfly are
formed in the larva. This, he thinks, explains how a
mutilated parent can produce unmutilated offspring, how
Levi could pay tithes to Melchisedec, before he was born,
and how the sin of Adam can be laid to the charge of all
his posterity. Upon this sandy foundation was long
afterwards erected the theory of “ emboitement” (infra,
p. 289).

Swammerdam recognised four modes of larval develop-
ment, and made use of them to divide insects into four
orders. In the first order development is direct, and
there is no transformation. Here he placed the lice,
besides the ‘centipedes, spiders, scorpions, earthworm
and slugs. In his second order Swammerdam placed
the insects which gradually acquire wings, and pass
through no resting-stage. Of these he quotes the
dragon-fly, the cricket, the cockroach and others. In
the third order come the insects whose wings develop
beneath the larval skin and which pass through a

1 Biblia Nature, p. 34.

i

184 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

pupal or resting-stage. Here Swammerdam places
the bees, beetles, moths, butterflies, and certain two-
winged flies. But those flies which, like the bluebottle
or the house-fly, pupate within the dry larval skin he
separated to form his fourth order, associating with
them, on slight grounds, other insects of quite different
kinds.
The Hive-bee

The Biblia Nature does not admit of brief abstract,
and probably the only way in which a notion of its
quality can be given to a modern reader is by a leisurely
account of one or more chapters as a specimen of the
rest. The description of the hive-bee’ recommends
itself to our choice. It is full and interesting; it
reveals the practical methods and some of the philo-
sophical views of its author. Moreover the hive-bee
has attracted the notice of observers and minute
anatomists in every age; Swammerdam, Réaumur and
the two Hubers kept the inquiry alive for a century and
a half without nearly exhausting it, as may be seen by
the fact that it was still left for Dzierzon to prove
the following new and vitally important points :—
that female bees (queen and workers) proceed only from
eggs fertilised by drones; that drones proceed from un-
fertilised eggs; that the queen is fertilised once for all,
and can fertilise or not fertilise her eggs, seemingly at
her own pleasure.

Swammerdam tells us that the chief part of his work
on the hive-bee was done in 1673, one of those “cruel
years,” as he calls them, of the French invasion, when
the dykes were cut to save Amsterdam. The very bees
were ruined in Holland, and hardly any queens could be
procured. He had worked at bees before this date, and

1 Biblia Nature, p. 367.

SWAMMERDAM 185

the anatomy of a drone had been one of the marvels of
nature which he had laid before the duke of Tuscany in
1668. He now spent several months upon the in-
vestigation, dissecting by day, and writing his descrip-
tions at night. All his favourite anatomical methods
were brought into play—dissection with simple lenses,
inflation, injection with coloured liquids, and mounting
in balsam. The life-history, the anatomy of the male,
female and neuter bees in every stage, and the whole
economy of the hive, are carefully described. To the
discussion of special points of structure or function
Swammerdam brings a considerable knowledge, not only
of insects but of animals in general, and often enters
upon fruitful comparisons. The engraved figures would
do credit to the most skilful anatomists of any age.
This, the first extensive and truly scientific memoir on
the hive and its inhabitants, carries the exploration a
long way at a single bound, and biology can hardly
produce a second example of a research so comprehensive
and disfigured by so few faults.

In spite of his extraordinary sagacity and the most
scrupulous pains, Swammerdam’s account of the hive-
bee contains some errors of fact and of interpretation.
The naturalist who undertakes to describe for the first
time so complex a thing as a social insect reminds one
of the pilgrim who had to go along the Valley of
Humiliation; Bunyan tells us that Christian went down
very warily, yet he caught a slip or two.

Swammerdam had announced in his Historia In-
sectorum Generalis (1669) that the queen, hitherto
commonly called the “king of the bees,” is the only
effective female in the hive; that the drones are the
males and the workers neuters. This identification
rested upon his careful and detailed anatomical examina-

186 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

tion of each sex.’ He is positive that the workers have
no reproductive organs, though it is now known that
they occasionally lay eggs. He remarks that both the
queen and the workers possess a sting, while the drones
have none, and that in structure and disposition the
workers resemble the queen rather than the drones.

The external features of the bee are described in much
detail, and Swammerdam put forth all his skill in the
account of the proboscis, compound eyes and sting. We
are surprised to find no detailed account or enlarged
figure of the legs of the worker-bee, on which we
should have expected that particular care would have
been bestowed.

The large figure of the proboscis might be copied
almost without alteration in any modern text-book of
entomology; but in the description we observe some
mistakes. Swammerdam thought that the long slender
tongue was a real tube,” that it was the only entrance to
the mouth, and that the sucking-up of liquids was
effected by the movement of the abdomen. Many a
bee would have perished by starvation had it been
furnished with a capillary inlet so liable to become
choked with viscid nectar and pollen. The tongue is
actually grooved and not tubular ; the suctorial channel
is made up of distinct pieces, which can be separated at
pleasure; moreover there is a large and distensible

10thers had suspected that the “governor” of the bees was a female, but
without attempt at strict proof, e.g. Butler (supra, p. 89). Milton’s Paradise
Lost was published in 1667, and can have taken no advantage of Swammer-
dam’s discoveries. Yet it celebrates
*“The female bee, that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey stored.” (vii, 490-1.)

2«¢Cavi instar tubuli pervia” (B.N., p. 445; pl. xvii, fig. v). Swammer-
dam’s mistake was pointed out by Réaumur, Hist. des Insectes, tom. v;
pp. 320-1.

SWAMMERDAM 187

mouth-opening, which forms no part of the tongue.
The proboscis of the bee leads Swammerdam to say a
word about that of a moth, which he shows to be
double, the halves being co-articulated by innumerable
fine hooks. He briefly describes the short proboscis of
a wasp, but gives no hint that it is made up of parts
answerable to those of the bee, except that he figures
the two sets of organs side by side.

When he comes to the eyes of the bee he remarks
that they are larger in the drone than in the queen or
the worker, and that besides compound eyes there are
three peculiar eyes (now called “simple eyes”) on the
top of the head. That the compound eyes are true
organs of vision had already been demonstrated by
Hooke, who had blinded insects by cutting out or
injuring their eyes. Swammerdam resorted to the less
cruel expedient of smearing the bee’s eyes with black
paint, and found that bees so treated could not find
their way about. By careful figures and descriptions he
gives as good a representation of the eye of a bee as
could be attained in the days when there were no trans-
parent sections, when the development of the parts had
not been studied, and when the best optical knowledge
was but elementary. In spite of all defects, Swammer-
dam’s account of the compound eye is much the best
which was offered to physiologists then or for many
years to come. He remarks that certain ingenious but
hasty philosophers (“‘sommige subtiele ende gaauwe
geesten”), among them the illustrious Hooke, had
supposed the compound eye to be a collection of
numerous simple eyes, each fashioned like the eye of
man. Swammerdam saw that this comparison gives
no true idea of the insect-eye. To the inner surface of
each corneal facet is applied a long, slender cone, which,

188 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

though it may superficially resemble an iris in being
pigmented, has no pupil, and absorbs almost all the light
which enters it. The humours of the vertebrate eye,
which Hooke thought he had found in the compound
eye, are not really to be recognised therein. Swammer-
dam derides certain naturalists, to whom he had demon-
strated the facets of the bee’s eye (Leeuwenhoek is no
doubt one of these), and who had found in their hexa-
gonal form a reason why the cells of the honeycomb
should be hexagonal. On the same principle, says
Swammerdam, mankind with their circular pupils ought
always to make circular dwellings! Among other
details he notes the fine branching air-tubes which run
between the elements of an insect’s eye—a striking
proof of the goodness of his microscopes and the close-
ness of his observation. How can insects see with their
compound eyes? Swammerdam answers that there is
no image formed upon a retina, as in the vertebrate eye ;
there is no regulated aperture for the admission of light ;
in short, the compound eye is not in any respect such a
camera obscura as the human eye. The luminous rays
must strike direct upon the cones, and there produce
sensations. He goes on to say that the vision of insects
is thereby rendered more acute; it is because they
possess compound eyes that bees can see in the dark,
and that dragon-flies can take their prey on the wing.
But here Swammerdam places himself among those
“ingenious and hasty philosophers” who explain what
they do not really understand. Vision by means of a
compound eye was first made in some degree intelligible
by Johannes Miiller a hundred and fifty years after the
date of Swammerdam’s account of the hive-hee.

The sting, he tells us, is straight in the worker, curved
in the queen, and wanting in the drone. Though con-

SWAMMERDAM 189

cealed in the winged bee, it is external in the pupa, and
its hard parts are cast together with the pupal skin.
His figures show all the essential parts of the sting—the
sheath, the two darts with their levers, the barbed teeth,
the poison-sac with its gland and duct. He notes the
firmness of the poison-sac, and says that if the abdomen
is opened and the sac grasped, the whole sting may be
plucked out without tearing. He was accustomed to
mount the sting in balsam—a method of his own devis-
ing. He examined the action of the darts and their
barbs by causing bees to sting leather gloves and the
thicker parts of the human skin ; he remarked the alter-
nate action of the darts, and the tendency of the sting
to penetrate deeper and deeper. In his thirst for know-
ledge he often pressed a bee’s sting into his own skin,
and found that if the poison is prevented from entering,
the pain is nothing. When bee’s venom was taken into
the mouth, he observed that it caused a flow of saliva,
and an action upon the tongue like that of the root of
Pyrethrum or of spirits of wine. The poison of the
queen was more virulent than that of the worker, and
that of a wasp more potent still.

I must forego the opportunity, so seductive to an
insect-anatomist, of discussing Swammerdam’s descrip-
tion of the internal organs of the bee. They are won-
derfully exact and detailed, and would rank with the
best work done in modern times. General observations
now and then show how wide was his knowledge of
insects and allied animals. He remarks that insects,
spiders and crabs cast the skin, and, unlike vertebrates,
have their muscles enclosed by the skeleton! Few
naturalists of his own generation could have penned
such a sentence as the following, though it has since

1 Pp. 403, 444.

190 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

become matter of common knowledge :—“ Whatever
size insects have attained when they undergo their
transformation, they retain ever after.” He had closely
studied the change of skin in insects. The new seg-
ments and appendages, he tells us, are at first soft and
wrinkled, but expand greatly as soon as they become
free, owing to distention by air or blood. He is well
aware of the close connection between instantaneous or
protracted egg-laying, and the shorter or longer duration
of the imaginal state.

The life-history of the hive-bee is described with much
care. Swammerdam noted the changes of skin which
the larva undergoes, and the closeness of his observation
is shown by his statement that when the last larval
skin is cast the old tracheee are withdrawn from the
spiracles, and the chitinous lining from the alimentary
canal.

Having worked out with incredible labour the struc-
ture of the reproductive organs of the queen and drone,
and having convinced himself that the queen lays all
the eggs by which the hive is replenished (but see
p. 186), Swammerdam must have confidently expected
to get proof of the fertilisation of the queen by a drone.
But the difficulties of observation happen to be unusually
great in the case of the hive-bee, and Swammerdam was
unluckily led astray by difficulties of his own contriving.
He never came to a knowledge of what actually occurs,
and put forth a delusive explanation which does him
little credit. To begin with, he could not understand
the action of the male parts, which seemed to him to
hinder effective copulation. He remarked too that the
queen is surrounded by workers, which do not permit
the access of drones ; even at swarming-times, when she
is allowed to leave the hive, she is closely guarded.

SWAMMERDAM 191

There is, as we now know, one occasion in the life of
the queen when she flies abroad unaccompanied by
workers, but this was unknown to Swammerdam and all
other naturalists until the time of the elder Huber. In
this emergency Swammerdam might have profitably
recollected the maxim which he quotes from Bacon, that
it is not our business to devise, or to think out, but to
discover the method of Nature. He betook himself to
thinking out, and the result was his theory of an aura
seminalis. Drones shut up in a box or bottle give out
a strong odour; during the summer months a hive con-
tains thousands of drones; if the queen is not fertilised
like other female insects, was it not possible that she
might be fertilised by the effluvium of the drones?
This supposition, at least in the seventeenth century,
when seeds were thought by some to be fertilised by an
effuvium from flowers, and when strange fables as to
the generation of saints were not yet wholly discredited,
had sufficient plausibility to justify further examination.
An experiment was hit upon by Swammerdam, the very
experiment by which long afterwards Huber demolished
Swammerdam’s theory, viz. that of exposing a virgin
queen to the emanations of drones enclosed in a per-
forated box. It impairs Swammerdam’s character as a
scientific man that he never tried his own experiment ;
he ought either to have thoroughly tésted his theory, or
to have withheld it. He speculates also upon the possi-
bility that the eggs of bees, like those of many fishes,
may be fertilised after laying, but here again he had no
facts to go upon, nor did he try to procure any.
Swammerdam’s description of the comb is tolerably
full, but too familiar for repetition. He notices the
remarkable constancy in size of the cells, and tells us
that some Frenchman had proposed to make them the

192 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

basis of an international system of measurements.’ He
thinks that he could make out how the bees construct
their cells if he could spare half a year for quiet
observation.

He has much to say about honey, bee-bread and wax,
but his knowledge is still imperfect. The honey, he
thinks, undergoes a sort of partial digestion in the
crops of the workers, and is afterwards regurgitated
into the honey-cells. Bee-bread he examined micro-
scopically, but failed to discover that it is derived from
the pollen of flowers, though he recognised its identity
with the pellets brought home on the legs of working
bees. The globules which he found in the bee-bread
puzzled him completely; at one time he thinks that
they look like fat-globules; at another he thinks they
may be dew or the effluvium of flowers and fruits, con-
densed into globules by the pressure of the atmosphere!
Nor is he more fortunate in explaining the uses of the
bee-bread; he does not find out that it is the same
thing as the whitish, almost tasteless paste, which he
elsewhere mentions as the food of the larve; he has a
strong suspicion that it is the raw material out of which
wax is formed, and throws out conjectures that saliva,
venom or honey may be able to change bee-bread into
wax. He justly doubts whether the workers ever return
to the hive with wax on their legs, and mentions a
reward which he offered in vain to any Dutch beemaster
who would bring him a bee so laden.

The whole economy of the hive is discussed, and such
matters as the rearing of brood, swarming, and the pro-
duction of new queens receive due attention. Most of

1The Frenchman, as Réaumur says, was Swammerdam’s friend, Thévenot
(Hist. des. Insectes, Vol. V, p. 398). Réaumur observes that the pendulum
offers a far more exact standard of length. A degree of the earth’s surface is
proposed as a unit of length in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.

SWAMMERDAM 193

what Swammerdam has to say about these things had
been known for ages to beemasters.

Aristotle, Virgil and Pliny tell how bees in windy
weather load themselves with small pebbles, to save
themselves from being blown away, and Swammerdam
tries to show how this belief may have originated.’
When he was living in France in 1666 he observed the
habits of the mason-bee (Chalicodoma), and saw it carry-
ing small pebbles for the strengthening of its stony
nest.

He tries to make intelligible the tale of Sampson and
the swarm of bees which made combs in the carcase of a
dead lion.” Perhaps the bones of the lion had first been
cleaned by maggots. But he adds the significant fact
that there are flies so like bees, and with maggots so like
bee-larvee that they may easily be taken for true bees.
In our own time Osten Sacken has more fully worked
out this notion of Swammerdam’s, and put it beyond
doubt that the resemblance of drone-flies to bees is the
basis of the ancient and wide-spread belief that bees may
be generated from putrefying carcases.

Whatever poets and philosophers may have imagined,
Swammerdam holds that all the acts of the workers in
the hive are governed by necessity ; they have no real
government, no virtues, no rewards nor punishments.
Elsewhere he says that the bees learn their duties from
nature, not by copying others.

There is a short but useful account of humble-bees
and their nests, which was afterwards greatly expanded
and improved upon by Réaumur.

Swammerdam is far from methodical in his statement
of facts, and the reader is sometimes put to much
trouble by his habit of modifying in one place what

1 Biblia Nature, p. 525. 2B.N., p. 527.
N

194 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

he has already said in another. He is fond of digression,
and whatever the matter in hand, chance remarks on a
variety of subjects are to be expected. If the references
were lost, one would hardly look in the chapter on
the hive-bee for the two passages next cited.

All animals, he says, even man himself, proceed from
egos. In another place he speaks confidently about
mammalian eggs, though such things were not actually
demonstrated before the nineteenth century.

A chance mention of the egg-masses of the lackey-
moth leads him to say that though such eggs might be
expected as a matter of course to yield caterpillars, they
sometimes yield flies instead, which he considers the
most surprising fact in natural history. This must be a
very early mention (perhaps the very first) of egg-
parasites.

The Snail and other Mollusks

Swammerdam takes the apple-snail (Helix pomatia)
as his first example of a mollusk.1. He remarks that
this species was a pest to the wine-growers of France ;
in Holland, however, it was a curiosity, with which
people liked to furnish their grottos, and he thinks
it worth while to explain how they can be most readily
imported. Then he describes and figures the shell ;
unfortunately, this and some other figures of snails have
been reversed by the engraver. He calls it an operculate
shell, though he knew that the so-called operculum
is only to be found in winter. The uses of snails as
food and medicine are noted. They are, he thinks,
a kind of insect, and he places them in his first order of
insects, viz. such as undergo no transformation ; else-
where he speaks of ‘‘ Scarabaei et alia Testacea.”? The

1 Biblia Nature, p. 97. 2B.N., p. 197.

SWAMMERDAM 195

shell, he explains, is not the house of the snail, but part
of its body; it is formed of “true bone,” and has
muscles inserted into it. The tentacles are carefully
and admiringly described. He shows how they are
withdrawn by special retractor muscles, and protruded
by a kind of peristaltic action of their annular muscles.
The eye on the tip of the tentacle receives close atten-
tion; Swammerdam finds in it all the layers of the
vertebrate eye, and even believes that it possesses an
iris, though he admits that he has not seen it. The
eyes of the snail are, he tells us, ineffective for the
perception of near objects. He notices in passing the
eye of the mole, which also is of little or no use; to
this keen-sighted anatomist it was so plain that he could
dissect it without a microscope. He figures the jaw
of the apple-snail and its odontophore, but he does
not seem to have found the lingual ribbon,’ one of those
exquisite contrivances in which he was accustomed to
take delight. It was not only Swammerdam’s eyes
which were quick to perceive; he speaks of hearing
the sound which the snail makes in feeding. Then
he goes on to the organs of respiration and circulation.
His knowledge of the circulation is not quite complete ;
for example, he takes the pulmonary vein to be the vena
cava. He tells how from this vessel the heart and
arteries can be inflated, or filled with a coloured liquid.
He knows that the blood of the snail is coagulable, and
that it turns milky when mixed with water. This leads
him to expose the mistake of speculative writers in
saying that small animals “of this kind” (he means
invertebrate animals) have no blood; they really have
blood, but, except in the earthworm, it has no crimson
colour. He mentions and figures the renal organ, which

1He describes elsewhere the lingual ribbons of Paludina and Sepia.

196 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

he says discharges a calcareous secretion into the
intestine.

Swammerdam’s account of the complicated reproduc-
tive organs of the snail isa marvel. If it were now an
untouched inquiry, and if a trained naturalist, armed
with modern appliances, were to spend a summer in
elucidating it, he would do well to turn out so good
a history as this. The darts are the only things
which completely puzzle Swammerdam, and this is not
surprising, for their function is by no means cleared
up even now. Only a single blameable weakness is to
be remarked ; being unable to explain the spermatheca,
he throws out the wholly unjustifiable speculation that
it answers to the cavity in which the murex stores its
purple dye.’

Swammerdam gives a careful representation of the
nervous system of his snail, noting particularly the
cesophageal ring, which he had found in moths also
and all other insects examined by him. He notes the
great mobility of the nervous ring upon the cesophagus,
and figures the muscles by which its position can be
altered. The lateral cesophageal connectives answer, he
thinks, to the spinal cord.

Of the shell he has much to say. It is a tube spirally
wound about a small central space, which is sometimes
closed in the apple-snail as in many others; he notes
. that in Vermetus a number of the spires are unconnected
and irregular. In some aquatic snails the shell can
be recognised even in the egg. It is invested by a
“periosteum.” When the snail is about to add to its
shell, it cleanses the old periosteum with its mouth,
removing pieces and swallowing them ; at these times it
remains long motionless. The new shell is formed,

1For Swammerdam on the androgyny of the snail see supra, p. 118.

SWAMMERDAM 197

he says, of fibres secreted by the mucous glands of
the skin, especially by the thickened edge of the mantle;
these fibres coalesce to form membranes or laminz,
which are afterwards calcified. Bones, teeth and the
shells of crustaceans are, he thinks, formed in much
the same way, and injuries to the shell are repaired like
fractured bones. He thinks it wonderful that the shells
of aquatic snails and the cocoons of some aquatic insects
should form under water, for he attributed the hardening
of the mucous secretion to the action of the ‘“‘ambient air.”

A number of other mollusks, chiefly land or freshwater
species, are described with more or less detail. The
account of Paludina is interesting.’ Swammerdam
notes the horny operculum, the eyes on lateral pedicels
outside the tentacles, and the lingual ribbon. He grows
enthusiastic about the viviparous reproduction of this
snail, of which he gives a circumstantial account.

The Frog and the Tadpole

This memoir? is a marvel of patience and anatomical
skill. The passage of eggs from the ovary to the exterior
of the body is discussed by Swammerdam at great length,
but he could not make out how they gain the narrow
mouth of the oviduct (a question which still has its
difficulties). A large and elaborate drawing displays
the anatomy of a tadpole furnished with internal gills.
The early stages of development are described, the
process of segmentation naturally escaping observation,
and a stage is expressly mentioned in which the embryo
consists entirely of small granules (greynkens or kloot-
kens, our cells)? The “vermiculi viventes” which

1 Biblia Nature, p. 169. 2 Biblia Nature, pp. 789-860.

3 Leeuwenhoek made such a stage known in 1688, eight years after Swam-
merdam’s death, but long before the publication of the Biblia Nature (infra,
p. 203).

198 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Swammerdam found in the lung, are the parasites now

called Rhabdonema. .
Here too we find Swammerdam’s account of his

discovery of the red blood-corpuscles of the frog.
Foster’s translation! follows :—‘‘In the blood I per-
ceived the serum in which floated an immense number
of rounded particles, possessing the shape of as it were
a flat oval, but nevertheless wholly regular. These par-
ticles seemed however to contain within themselves the
humour of other particles [or rather, another humour
besides—the nucleus?]. When they were looked at
sideways, they resembled transparent rods, as it were,
and many other figures, according no doubt to the
different ways in which they were rolled about in the
serum of the blood. I remarked besides that the colour
of the objects was the paler the more highly they were
magnified by means of the microscope.” ”

The chapter ends with a discussion of muscular con-
traction, which can be studied in the frog with peculiar
advantage, partly because the nerves and muscles are
so readily exposed and separated, partly because the
power of contraction, as in all cold-blooded animals,
persists long after removal from the body. Swam-

1 History of Physiology, p. 99. B. N., p. 835.

2 The wrong date of 1658 is assigned to Swammerdam’s discovery of the red
blood-corpuscles of the frog by Foster (Joc. cit.), by Darmstidter, and probably
by other writers. In 1658 Swammerdam had not begun his regular anatomical
studies ; he went to Leyden for this purpose in 1661. No date is assigned, so
far as I know, either in the Biblia Nature or in Boerhaave’s Life prefixed
thereto, to the discovery of the red corpuscles, but on p. 839 of the Biblia
Nature the wrong date of 1658 is given to Swammerdam’s demonstration of a
muscle-nerve preparation before Cosmo III, Duke of Tuscany; it is well-
known that the Duke’s visit took place in 1668. Swammerdam’s observations
on the red corpuscles of the frog cannot therefore, it would seem, be dated at
all. In B.N., pp. 69, 70 he speaks of human blood as having been examined
by him, and found to contain reddish corpuscles floating in a clear liquid ; he
was not certain that they occur in arterial as well as in venous blood. See
also infra, p. 204.

SWAMMERDAM 199

merdam proved that the irritation of a nerve, com-
pletely severed from the brain, may excite a muscle to
contract, and further, that a muscle does not increase in
volume during contraction, as physiologists had hitherto
supposed. He placed the muscle-nerve preparation in
a glass tube, drawn out into a fine neck, and filled with
water. At the moment of contraction there was no
rise of water in the tube, but if anything a fall. He
concluded that no material substance passes along the
nerve to the muscle, but a mere impulse.’

ESTIMATE OF SWAMMERDAM

We may claim for Swammerdam (1) that he offered
the first scientific account of those transformations of
animals which had hitherto been so anomalous and per-
plexing; (2) that he gave a powerful impulse to the
comparative study of animal structures; (3) that he
did something for the improvement of zoological system ;
(4) that he illustrated by a series of examples admirably
worked out that method of studying structure and life-
history by means of concrete animal types, which still
holds its ground as the best form of elementary instruc-
tion in biology, and (5) that he made important con-
tributions to experimental physiology and embryology.
His short and troubled life was assuredly not spent in
vain.

1Glisson’s plethysmographic experiment demonstrated in a different way that
muscular contraction is not accompanied by an increase of volume, and this
was probably the first to be published (Foster’s History of Physiology, p. 290).
It would be interesting to learn more precisely what were the muscle-experi-

ments which Swammerdam demonstrated to Stensen and others somewhere
about the years 1666-8.

200 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

ANTONY VAN LEEUWENHOEK
1632-1723

Leeuwenhoek’s papers, most of which appeared in the
Philosophical Transactions, were collected and reprinted
from time to time in small volumes, a list of which is
given below. These volumes, not all issued by the same
publisher, are generally found bound in four volumes,
which bear the misleading title of Opera Omma. They
were not re-edited, and each collection has its own name,
pagination and index. We shall quote the collections
by the abbreviations given in the following list, adding
the volume and page of the collection most often met
with (4 vols. Lugd. Batav., 1722), but bad arrangement
and confused pagination will sometimes make it hard to
find the passages cited.

Anatomia, seu interiora rerum cum animatarum tum inanimarum (sic) ope,
...microscopiorum detecta. 2 pts. Lugd. Batav. 1687. (Anat.)

Arcane Natura detecta. 4to. Delphis Batav. 1695. (Arc. Nat.)

Continuatio Arcanorum Nature detectorum. 4to. Delphis Batav. 1697.
(Cont. Arc. Nat.)

Epistole physiologice. 4to. Delphis 1719. (Hp. phys.)

Epistole ad Societatem Regiam Anglicam...seu Continuatio Arcanorum
Nature detectorum. 4to. Lugd. Batav. 1719. (Hp. Soc. BR.)

Continuatio Epistolarum...ad Regiam Societatem Londinensem. 4to.
Lugd. Batav. 1689. (Cont. Epist.)

Nearly all the great naturalists of the seventeenth cen-
tury (it will suffice to mention the names of Malpighi,
Redi, Swammerdam and Ray) were learned men, who had
studied under eminent professors. Among them Leeu-
wenhoek, a man who owed nothing to any university,
and knew no language but his own, won a high place.’
In the new age of scientific discovery which had just
opened such examples were to become frequent. Leeu-

1 Leeuwenhoek ina letter to the Royal Society, dated Jan. 22, 1676, explains
that he can read Dutch only.

LEEUWENHOEK 201

wenhoek was born at Delft of a family of burghers, some
of whom had been brewers, and was first put to business
in Amsterdam. Afterwards he obtained the office of
sheriff's chamberlain in Delft, which yielded him a small
income with apparently little labour, and to this occu-
pation he settled down for life. In his leisure-time he
began to make and use magnifying glasses, and before
he had reached middle life his microscopic demonstra-
tions had become celebrated. De Graaf introduced him
to our Royal Society, which printed his first paper in
1674. Swammerdam repeatedly examined his prepara-
tions, and any distinguished person, such as the duke of
York or Peter the Great, who happened to visit Holland,
was taken to look at Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes as chief
curiosities of the country. In these placid occupations
his life was passed ; in his eighty-fifth year he wrote his
last published letter, as he says, with a torpid and
trembling hand, and died at ninety-one.
Leeuwenhoek did not methodically study any science;
his curiosity led him to examine a great variety of
minute objects, and he found something new in every
one. An attentive inspection, perhaps a drawing made
by another hand, a few reflections, sometimes remarkably
penetrating, and then he sits down to indite another
page of the Secrets of Nature. Next week or next
month he may be busy with something quite different.
Desultory work like this reminds us of Hooke’s Micro-
graphia. Both inquirers resemble men who have found
their way into a place rich in fragments of ore, and pick
up whatever happens to catch their eye, without attempt-
ing to sink shafts or run galleries. When we are inclined
to disparage Leeuwenhoek’s hasty methods it is well to
recollect that he initiated biological inquiries of the
greatest interest, e.g. the parthenogenesis of aphids and

202 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

the revivification of dried microscopic organisms, while
he gave the first notices, or the first worth mention, of
rotifers, Hydra, infusorians, yeast-cells and bacteria.

The microscopes which Leeuwenhoek made for himself
were double-convex lenses of various power. So much
light was lost that the higher powers were only
effective when the object was transparent and directly
illuminated by the sun. Leeuwenhoek found that the
adjustment of one of his lenses to the object was too
hard a task for inexperienced persons, and when he sent
preparations to a distance it was his practice to devote a
separate lens to every object, and fix everything in its
place. His experience showed that the most consider-
able discoveries were made with lenses of moderate
amplification.

The Royal Society formerly possessed a set of micro-
scopes and objects, bequeathed by Leeuwenhoek, and
described by him as ‘‘a small black cabinet, lackered
and gilded, which has five little drawers in it, wherein
are contained thirteen long and square tin boxes, covered
with black leather. In each of these boxes are two
ground microscopes, in all six and twenty ; which I did
grind myself, and set in silver; and most of the silver
was what I had extracted from minerals, and separated
from the gold that was mixed with it; and an account
of each glass goes along with them.”' This cabinet of
microscopes, which Baker had before him when he wrote
his Microscope made easy in 1748, disappeared long
ago.

Leeuwenhoek had no means of measuring small
lengths with precision, and his estimates are sometimes
ludicrously wrong; his standard of comparison was a
grain of sand, which he took to be the hundredth of an

1 Weld’s History of the Royal Society, I, p. 245.

LEEUWENHOEK 203

inch in diameter. Dr. James Jurin, a London physician,
improved upon this. A fine silver wire was wound in a
close spire about a slender cylinder, such as a pin; the
length of the spire divided by the number of the
turns gave the diameter of the wire. Short lengths
of this wire, strewn about the field of view, served as
measures of length. Benjamin Martin adopted an
expedient which is still much used, that of a glass disk,
ruled with fine lines and fitted in the focus of the eye-
glass.?

The Tadpole?

The circulation occupies a large part of the letter, but
Leeuwenhoek mentions some interesting details con-
cerning other parts of the frog’s history. He notes one
use of the jelly which coats the eggs, viz. that it becomes
loaded with minute air-bubbles, which, by rendering the
eggs buoyant, expose them to the heat of the sun. The
mouth of the tadpole with its many rows of teeth, the
suckers and the external gills are described. Like
Swammerdam, whose account was not yet printed,’
Leeuwenhoek remarks that the young tadpole is entirely
composed of cells (“‘ globules ”).

Blood and the Circulation®

Malpighi (supra, p. 161) had extended the knowledge
of the vascular system by showing that innumerable
capillary vessels connect the arteries and the veins in
the lung, the mesentery and the bladder of the frog.

1 Phil. Trans., No. 355 (1718) and Dissert. physico-math. 8vo. Lond. 1732,
pp. 45-6.

2 New and compendious system of Optics. 8vo. Lond. 1732, pp. 45-6.

3 Epist. 65, Arc. Nat. (1688). Vol. II, pp. 163-172.

4 Supra, p. 197.

5 Phil. Trans., 1674; Epist. 65-8, Arc. Nat. (1688-91). Vol. II, pp. 153-217.

204 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Leeuwenhoek demonstrated the capillary flow more
advantageously by using the tail of the tadpole and fish,
the web of the frog’s hind foot, the membrane of the
bat’s wing, &c. Malpighi in 1665 (supra, p. 163) had
seen the red blood-corpuscles of the hedgehog, mistaking
them however for fat-cells; Swammerdam at some
unknown date (supra, p. 198) had found them in the
blood of man and of the frog; Leeuwenhoek in 1673
examined a drop of his own blood, and saw red corpuscles
floating in it ; his discovery was published in 1674. He
went on to show that the mammals examined by him
contained circular red corpuscles, the birds, amphibians
and fishes oval ones; that the frog’s corpuscles are
nearly colourless, but reddish when superposed, and
exhibit a bright oval spot in the centre; further, that
the redness of blood is due to their presence. He also
found uncoloured corpuscles circulating in small trans-
parent crustaceans.

Spermatozoa

None of Leeuwenhoek’s own discoveries made quite
so much stir in the scientific world as the discovery of
the spermatozoa, which was popularly attributed to him.
He tells us* that in the year 1677 a young physician
named Hamm demonstrated the spermatozoa in his
presence; Leeuwenhoek lost no time in transmitting
the news to scientific friends and to the Royal Society.
He supplied figures of the spermatozoa, some of them
ludicrously like human beings, with heads, arms and
legs? It was Leeuwenhoek’s belief throughout life that

1 Phil. Trans. No. 142 (1678). The name of the discoverer is quoted by
Leeuwenhoek as ‘‘ Dominus Ham,” by others as Ludwig van Hammen, who is
said to have been a pupil of Leeuwenhoek and to have used a microscope
made by him, and again as Stephen Hammen of Stettin.

2 Cont. Arc. Nat., Vol. III, p. 68.

LEEUWENHOEK 205

the sperm was the veritable germ, which was only
hatched by the female, and he was ready with argu-
ments to prove that the “imaginary ova,”’ as he calls
them, have little or nothing to do with the first forma-
tion of the embryo. He. also believed that he could
distinguish two kinds of spermatozoa, which he set down
with characteristic boldness as the germs of male and
female embryos.

The Crystalline Lens’

Leeuwenhoek showed that the crystalline lens of
vertebrates is composed of many thin lamine, and that
fibres radiating from the anterior and posterior poles
form a three-rayed star in the lens of mammals.

Vertebrate Histology

There is perhaps no mention by earlier writers of the
transverse striation of muscles,’ the canaliculi of dentine,
the fibres of the crystalline lens, or the cells of the
epidermis, but it is hard to speak positively in such
cases. Leeuwenhoek describes and figures the epidermic
cells of his own skin; he took the cell-nuclei for the
ducts of glands.*

The Compound Eye *

Hooke, Malpighi and Swammerdam had already made
observations upon the compound eye of insects, but

1These ‘‘imaginary ova” were Graafian follicles. Arc. Nat. (1680).
Vol. II, p. 27. i

2 Arc. Nat. (1684). Vol. II, pp. 66-81.

3 Phil. Trans. (1681); Anat. (1682); Arc. Nat. (16832). Vol. I, p. 45 (2nd
pagination) ; Vol. II, pp. 30-1.

4 Epist. physiol., Epist. 43 (1717). Vol. IV, pp. 403-8.

5 Epist. 83, Arc. Mat. (1694) ; Epist. 35, Zp. phys. (1717). Vol. II, pp. 434-7.
Vol. IV, pp. 340-7.

206 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Leeuwenhoek had his own remarks to offer, sometimes
well-founded, sometimes not. He showed that repeated
inverted images are formed by the corneal facets, but
that we need not suppose each image to be separately per-
ceived ; we do not see double because we have two eyes.
He throws out the bold speculation that the hexagonal
cells of the honeycomb are due to an impression received
from the hexagonal facets of the bee’s eye, a supposition
which Swammerdam gravely refuted.’ Asa proof of the
quickness of sight which may be conferred by a com-
pound eye, he relates how he watched a swallow chasing
a dragon-fly over the surface of a large pond, and how
the swallow was baffled by the speed and unexpected
turns of the insect, which kept it always several feet in
front of the enemy. Leeuwenhoek points out that com-
pound eyes are not peculiar to insects, but occur in
crustaceans also.

Viviparous Reproduction by Unfertilised Aphids?

Leeuwenhoek remarked that expanding buds of
currants, cherries and peaches were sometimes distorted,
and the unexpanded leaves crumpled. On close ex-
amination he found that the affected buds were beset by
aphids or plant-lice. Intending to investigate their
life-history, he sought for eggs, but could find none.
When he opened the bodies of the aphids, he found to his
surprise no eggs but young aphids, resembling the
parent in all but size. An aphid no more than a fort-
night old might contain as many as sixty young ones,
so that propagation went on with extraordinary rapidity.
The birth of the young was observed. No males were

1 Biblia Nature, p. 490, and supra, p. 188.

2Epist. 90, Arc. Nat. (1695); Epist. 94, Cont. Arc. Nat. (1695); Epist. 104,
Cont. Arc. Nat. (1696) ; Epist. 134, Hp. Soc. R. (1700). Vol. II, pp. 486-502 ;
2nd pagination, pp. 9-11, 148-156 ; Vol. ITI, 263-280.

LEEUWENHOEK 207

found, and Leeuwenhoek concluded that the viviparous
females were unfertilised. Winged aphids appeared
among the rest, and the gradual protrusion of wings
beneath the skin was studied ; both winged and wingless
forms were viviparous. Leeuwenhoek evidently believed
that all, when mature, acquired wings, as his experience
of other insects would naturally suggest, but his supposi-
tion is not confirmed by observation.

He notes all sorts of facts concerning aphids in the
simple order of discovery, the casting of the skin, the
excretion of honey-dew, hitherto believed to fall from
the sky, the different species and the restriction of each
to a particular plant, the Hymenoptera parasitic upon
them, &c. A great deal of new and surprising informa-
tion was suddenly thrown out for the consideration
of naturalists in these unmethodical and almost extem-
pore letters. One figure of an aphis shows the antenne,
the proboscis and the abdominal tubes, with a drop
of liquid exuding from one of them.

The inquiry into the viviparous reproduction of
unfertilised aphids was afterwards pursued by Réaumur,
but soon handed over to Charles Bonnet (infra,
pp. 284, 286).

Hive-bee

Leeuwenhoek gives a very fair set of figures of the
sting of the bee, and also of the mouth-parts, though in
the latter case the bases are not shown."

Fleas?

Leeuwenhoek hatched the eggs of fleas, saw the larve
curled up within them and afterwards observed their

1 Phil. Trans. Nos. 94 and 97 (1673).
2 Arc. Nat. (1680, Epist. 76, 1693). Vol. II, pp. 20, 324-343.

208 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

emergence. He fed his larve on fresh-killed flies, and
after twelve or thirteen days observed them change
to pups. He utterly repudiates the doctrine of Kircher
that fleas are generated out of dust and filth. If
Kircher is to be trusted, he says, we must suppose that
fleas are generated in Italy after a very different fashion
from that which prevails in Holland.

Hooke, Roesel and De Geer are among the other
naturalists who investigated the flea.

Ants}

Ants are sometimes seen to carry about large, white,
rounded bodies, which are popularly known as “ ant-
eggs.” Leeuwenhoek copies and criticises Griendel’s
figure of one of these, which shows an eight-legged ant
walking about in a relatively large chamber. He shows
that the supposed egg is really a pupa, and that the real
eggs are much smaller. He rejects the belief that ants
store up food against the winter, which is nevertheless
true of the ants of warmer countries.

The Nature of Cochineal

Cochineal had been regularly grown by the Indians
of Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards, and since
careful transfer of the insects from old Opuntia-plants to
new ones is an essential part of the process of cultivation,
they must have known, one would think, what was the
real nature of the grains exported to Europe. It was
however long debated by the learned men of England,
France and Holland whether cochineal-grains are insects
or fruits. One anonymous writer of 1668 gave it as his
opinion that the dye-stuff consisted, not of fruits of the

1 Cont. Hpist. (1687). Vol. I, pp. 75-90.

LEEUWENHOEK 209

‘‘prickle-pear,” but of insects “‘engendered of the same.”?
Lister? conjectured that it might be a sort of kermes,
which was a near approach to the truth. Swam-
merdam® satisfied himself, both by the examination
of soaked cochineal and by the reports of unnamed
persons, that cochineal is composed of the dried bodies
of insects, but his report was not published till 1738,
when the question had been finally settled. Tyson‘
gave a figure of the “cochineel-fly,” which exhibits
decisive characters. Robert Boyle in 1685 invoked the
judgment of Leeuwenhoek, who replied that cochineal
was a fruit containing a multitude of small seeds. Boyle
sent back the opinion of a governor of Jamaica, to the
effect that the so-called seeds were really the eggs of
an insect. Upon this, Leeuwenhoek re-examined the
cochineal, and found distinct proofs of its insect-nature,
which were published in 1687. Still the dispute went
on. At last a lawsuit was instituted in Amsterdam
to decide a wager on the point; depositions were taken
in Mexico; the result was to convince everybody that
cochineal is really an insect.5

Spiders ®
Leeuwenhoek is at his best when occupied with a
small animal of complex structure. To work out the
whole anatomy and trace the whole life-history was too
much for his patience, but he may be counted upon for
good or fair figures (not drawn by his own hand),
ingenious experiments, and bold interpretations, which

1 Phil. Trans., No. 40 (1671). 2 Phil. Trans., No. 87 (1672).
3 Biblia Nature, p. 420. * Phil. Trans., No. 176 (1685).

5 Hist. Nat. de la Cochinelle, justifiée par des documens authentiques. Amst.
1729.

6 Hpist. 138, 143, Bp. Soc. R. (1701-2). Vol. IIT, pp. 312-345, 375-9,
(6)

210 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

sometimes give the clue to future discoveries. It is not
surprising therefore that a spider should furnish the
occasion for one of his most interesting letters, written,
we may remark, in his sixty-ninth year.

He happened to begin with the microscopic examina-
tion of a spider caught in his house, and the first thing
which he remarked was the blood coursing through
the legs. The spider managed to escape, so Leeuwen-
hoek went on to examine the next spider which came to
hand, a garden-spider. He had remarked that when
dropping by its line from a height, a spider may often
be seen to pause, and support itself by grasping its line
with one of its hind feet. This led him to look carefully
at the structure of the foot. He found a pair of serrate
claws, and between them a smaller, non-serrate claw,
which he supposed to be that which grasped the line.
Next he examined the parts of the mouth. The poison-
fangs are well described and figured, the piercing
terminal joint, the double row of spines between which
the terminal joint folds up, and the minute orifice
of the poison-duct being all clearly shown. The four
pairs of eyes are drawn. He remarked that captive
spiders, when fairly matched in size, fight with great
determination, and that if the central part of the body
is wounded by the poison-fangs, the injury is mortal.

We find here the first tolerable account of the
spinning apparatus of the garden-spider. Having fixed
a spider on its back, Leeuwenhoek with a pair of forceps
drew out a thread, noting that it was composed of
innumerable parallel filaments. At the extremity of the
abdomen he found five triangular valves meeting in
a point ; the uppermost (really the tip of the abdomen)
emitted no threads, but the other four (the spinners ;
there are actually six, but two of them are concealed)

LEEUWENHOEK 211

bore hair-like spinnerets, each of which emitted its own
filament.

In October spiders were enclosed separately in glass
tubes to see whether they would lay eggs. Some of
them spun webs, within which they laid rounded masses,
half an inch in diameter, composed of yellow eggs.
Leeuwenhoek found to his surprise that the eggs are not
passed out from the extremity of the abdomen, but
from the under surface of its fore end. In a warm room
little spiders hatched out during the winter, before any
food was ready for them; some devoured the bodies
of their companions or the unfertilised eggs. Letter
143 tells how an unnamed friend had seen what were
no doubt the palps of the male spider used to fertilise
the female; anatomical and other considerations made it
impossible for Leeuwenhoek to accept this true story.

An Inquiry into the Generation of the Edible Mussel
(Mytilus) *

It was with the intention of refuting the doctrine that
shell-fishes are generated from the mud of the sea-
bottom that Leeuwenhoek took up this inquiry; he
would, as he says, have found it just as easy to believe
that a whale could be generated from mud. He quotes
testimony to prove that mussel-spawn or milt at certain
seasons makes the sea white, and thinks it certain that
the spawn settles at the bottom, to replenish the ex-
hausted mussel-beds. But until the spawn was clearly
traced to the mussel the evidence did not carry convic-
tion. Leeuwenhoek dissected mussels, and searched in
vain for their eggs, though he found other things to
interest him, such as the play of cilia on the gill, which

1 Epist. 83, Arc. Nat. (1694). Vol. II, pp. 417-439.

212 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

he had previously observed in the oyster,! the byssus by
which the mussel anchors itself, and the crystalline
style, which he supposed to be accessory to reproduction.
At last he found what he took to be the eggs adhering
in clusters to the outside of a mussel-shell. Each egg
occupied one of a number of cells which were arranged
in regular rows, and was furnished with sixteen long
filaments disposed in a circle. What he had really
found was a Polyzoan colony (Membranipora) ; his
embryos were the polyps, and the circle of filaments the
lophophore.

He thought that the crystalline style of the mussel
was used to arrange the eggs (polyzoan polyps) on the
outside of the shell, and compared it to the ovipositor of
an insect, but in a postscript he assigns this function to
the foot.

The naturalist’s attention was next caught by what
he called pustules on the mussel-shells, which a glance
at his figure shows to have been acorn-barnacles. On
the top of the conical barnacle-shell he found an aperture
guarded by two valves, which opened when dipped in
sea-water, but closed and retracted when touched with
a needle. The eggs of the barnacle were discovered ;
other individuals which contained no eggs he naturally
but erroneously took to be males.”

In spite of his unlucky mistakes, Leeuwenhoek, as we
have seen, drew from his unsuccessful quest of mussel-
eggs two capital discoveries. arly investigators no
doubt labour under special difficulties, but they also
enjoy advantages of their own.

1Phil, Trans., Feb. 1681-2. Heide (infra, p. 218) announced the same
discovery in 1683.

2 A description of a stalked barnacle (Lepas), about as good as Leeuwenhoek’s
acorn-barnacle (Balanus) was given a hundred years earlier by Fabius Columna
in his Pisctum aliquot plantarumque novarum historia. 4to. Neapoli. 1592.

LEEUWENHOEK 213

A countryman of Leeuwenhoek, Antony van Heide,
who practised medicine at Middleburg, had several years
before this written an account of the anatomy of the
mussel,’ which we might have expected to be quoted in
this letter ; it was valued by Martin Lister and others.
Heide described the crystalline style and the foot, and
believed himself to have discovered the “ motus miran-
dus” (ciliary motion) in the gill of the mussel, but
Leeuwenhoek’s description of the cilia of the beard of
the oyster is a year or two earlier (see p. 212).

Anodon Embryos?

Among the many objects which engaged the attention
of Leeuwenhoek was Anodon. His account is slight and
unsystematic. He mentions the ciliary motion in the
gills of this and a marine bivalve (Mactra?), but the
best of his attention was bestowed upon the eggs.
Ovarian eggs were studied by the microscope, and the
naturalist, his daughter and the draughtsman watched the
rotating embryos for hours together with great delight.
He was aware that the eggs are transferred from the
ovary to the gill.

Swammerdam too made a cursory examination of the
structure of Anodon, from which he prepared a meagre
and largely erroneous description.? Poupart and Méry
(infra, p. 234) were the first to treat the anatomy of
Anodon with any thoroughness.

1 Anatome Mytili, Belgice Mossel, structuram elegantem ejusque motum miran-

dum exponens. Prefixed to a Century of Medical Observations. 8vo. Amst.
1683.

2 Mpist. 95, Cont. Arc. Nat. (1695). Vol. II, pp. 14-29 (2nd pagination).
3 Biblia Nature, p. 190, pl. X, figs. vi, vii.

214 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Rotifers*

Having macerated bruised pepper in rain-water, Leeu-
wenhoek found animals of the kind which we now call
rotifers in the infusion ; the description agrees with that
of Rotifer vulgaris, but few details are furnished. He
observed that the tail-end was furnished with a forked
grasping apparatus, the head-end with a peculiar organ
which set up whirlpools in the water. The animalcules
were able to creep like leeches, attaching each end by
turns to the supporting surface. Near the middle of the
body was a structure which seemed to pulsate, and was
taken by Leeuwenhoek for the heart, but it was no
doubt the mastax, or gizzard.

Fifteen years later Leeuwenhoek returns to his
rotifers? In a leaden gutter the rain-water took a
reddish colour, and when examined by the microscope
was found to contain red or green rotifers. Some con-
tained embryos, one of which was seen to free itself and
swim about. Hot weather came on, and the gutter
dried up. When all the water disappeared there was no
sign of life, but it occurred to Leeuwenhoek to put a
little of the dry mud into a glass tube and add rain-
water. In an hour rotifers were seen clinging to the
glass or swimming about in the water. They revived
equally well when boiled rain-water was used to moisten
the mud, and even after the mud had been kept dry for
twenty-one months.

Leeuwenhoek sagaciously remarks that the cuticle of
the animalcules must be singularly impervious to water,
for if the tissues had really become dry they must have
perished. The possibility that minute organisms may be

1 Cont. Ep. (1687). Vol. II, pp. 94-6.

2 Bpist. 144, Cont. Arc. Nat. (1702). Vol. III, pp. 380-394; Phil. Trans.,
Nos. 283, 295, 337 (1703-13).

LEEUWENHOEK 215

superficially dried, transported by wind or flying animals,
and afterwards revived by moisture, explained many of
the cases which had been thought to prove the genera-
tion of animals from putrid matter.

The means employed by gutter-rotifers to protect
their bodies from complete desiccation are more elabo-
rate than Leeuwenhoek was aware of. They not only
contract their bodies, but seal up the ends with gelatinous
plugs; if the process of drying is too rapid for this, as
for instance when naked rotifers are dried on a glass
slip, they perish at once. It has been found possible,
by placing strips of paper in a wet gutter, to procure
groups of rotifers glued to one another and to the paper,
as many as a hundred together. When thus protected,
they show remarkable power of resisting extremes of
temperature; they can also endure the vacuum of an
ordinary air-pump, though not the more complete
exhaustion of the Sprengel pump, and they revive
after drying in vacuo over sulphuric acid.1

Long after Leeuwenhoek’s death Spallanzani? showed
that the moss-haunting Tardigrades exhibit the same
power of enduring superficial drying ; so do Infusoria
and other Protozoa, moulds, bacteria, seeds and eggs.
Preyer has compared the organism whose life is thus
temporarily arrested to a clock which has been wound
up and then brought to a stand; a push is enough to set
it going again. But an organism which has once been
thoroughly dried is like a clock whose spring is broken.

In his Royal Society papers Leeuwenhoek describes
and figures Limnias ceratophylli and Melicerta ringens.°

1H. Davis, Month. Micr. Journ., 1873, p. 287; Hudson and Gosse, Vol. I,
p. 95; Hartog, Camb. Nat. Hist., Vol. II, p. 227.

2 Opuscules de physique animale et végétale (1776).

3 Phil. Trans., Nos. 295 (1705) and 337 (1713). In 1713 the naturalist must
have been over eighty years of age.

216 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

He points out that what seem to be two wheels are
really the lobes of a single disk, and that the ciliary
play is continuous, the direction being counter-clock-
wise. He discovered that the tube of Melicerta is com-
posed of pellets moulded by the ciliary disk, and laid
one by one on the edge of the growing tube.

Hydra’

Leeuwenhoek was the first to discover and describe
(very briefly) this deeply interesting animal. He tells
us that it possesses from six to eight horns (tentacles),
which can be extended so far that under the microscope
they seemed to be several fathoms long! He found
two small polyps attached to a parent, and saw them
become free, thus anticipating the most important fact
in Trembley’s discovery, though forty years were to pass
before its significance could be perceived. A parasite
(Trichodina) was seen running about on the polyp.
The figure of Hydra, though recognisable, is not good.

Unicellular Animals (Protozoa)

Hooke’s Rotalia and Leeuwenhoek’s Nonionina (the
latter found in the stomach of a shrimp) were the first
recent Foraminifers to be noticed. The observations of
living Rhizopods begins with Roesel, who in 1755
described and figured an Amceba. Except for a slight
notice of Huglena by Harris (1696), the study of the
flagellate Infusorians begins with Leeuwenhoek’s account

1 Phil. Trans., No. 283 (1702). Better figures are given shortly afterwards
by ‘‘a gentleman in the country” (Phil. Trans., No. 288, 1703). The chief
faults are that the body of the Hydra is shown as segmented, and that there
is an outlet at the attached end. The same paper contains the earliest figure

of a diatom (Tabellaria) which I have met with; the writer at first took

the cells for “salts” (crystals), but afterwards thought that they might be
plants.

LEEUWENHOEK 217

of Volvox, Heematococcus and Polytoma. It is again
Leeuwenhoek who starts the literature of the ciliate
Infusorians by his descriptions of organisms found in
rain-water and pepper-infusions, of species parasitic upon
the frog, and of Vorticellid colonies. He remarked that
no Infusorians could be found in fresh rain-water col-
lected by a leaden gutter, but that they appeared in the
course of a few days.

Volvox

In water from a ditch Leeuwenhoek remarked a
number of green spheres, which moved slowly about,
rotating as they moved. Closer examination showed
that each sphere was composed of a multitude of par-
ticles beset with small protuberances. Several small
spheres might often be seen within a single large one,
and Leeuwenhoek was fortunate enough to see them
escape one by one through an opening in the parent
sphere, until none remained behind; as soon as they
became free they began to swim about; he*detected the
germs of a third generation within the daughter-spheres.
The small spheres grew rapidly after liberation. Not-
withstanding its power of locomotion, the mode of pro-
pagation led Leeuwenhoek to decide that Volvox was
more like a plant than an animal.

Henry Baker in 1753 showed that the protuberances
which Leeuwenhoek had seen on the green particles of
Volvox bore “short moveable Hairs or Bristles” (pairs
of cilia), and that these set up the movements of the
spheres. The name of Volvox was given by Linnzus
(1758).

1Epist. 122, Zp. Soc. R. (1700).

218 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

Reverse Planting *

Constantyn Huygens, father of the celebrated physicist
and mathematician, told Leeuwenhoek that the gardeners
of the Elector of Brandenburg were in the habit of plant-
ing trees upside down. Leeuwenhoek said that twenty
years earlier he had bent down a vine shoot and caused
it to enter the earth; when it had rooted itself, the
connection with the parent plant was cut, and thus a
second vine was obtained; he had treated branches of
gooseberries, currants and willows in the same way with
complete success, and experiments were now made on
lime-trees. The young tree was laid on the ground, the
roots at one end and the branches at the other being
sunk in the earth. In time the buried branches began
to send out roots. As soon as these were well estab-
lished, the roots were cut through, and the trunk raised
to a sloping position, the original lower end being now
uppermost, and the original upper end rooted in the
earth. Buds formed on what had been the roots, and
in the course of a little more than a year grew into
branches of good length.

Ray and Willughby’ had made similar experiments.
Slips of willow were set in the ground with the growing
ends downwards ; briars which had taken root at the
small end were cut through ; all grew and flourished.

Malpighi® had observed that shoots of fig, prune and
bramble will grow if planted upside down, and yield
trees, though not full-sized ones. His conclusion is
given in these words, “unde alimenti via invertitur,”
(the path of the nutritive sap is reversed).

1Epist. 64, Arc. Nat. (1688). Vol. II, pp. 141-6.
2 Phil. Trans., No. 48 (1669). 3 Anatomes Plantarum Idea, p. 18 (1671).

‘Theophrastus mentions the growing of pomegranates upside down (De
causis plantarum, Bk. IT, ch. 9).

LEEUWENHOEK 219

Reverse planting became a favourite diversion in the
eighteenth century, and Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary
gives instructions for practising it.

The interest of such experiments is not solely prac-
tical. It is well-known that brambles, Forsythia, &c.
enlarge at the extremities of the rooting branches ;
some Aroids, &c. form tubers on their aerial branches.
Further investigation may possibly throw light, not only
upon the origin of tubers, but also upon that reversal of
the sap-current which struck Malpighi as remarkable.

Minute Structure of Wood

Leeuwenhoek’s figure of a piece of lime-wood cut
longitudinally is believed to be the earliest represen-
tation of dotted ducts.’

Yeast?

The first microscopic study of yeast-cells was made
by Leeuwenhoek. He remarked that they give off
bubbles in great numbers, as do crabs’ eyes when placed
in vinegar, and that many of them are compound, con-
sisting of several particles united together; he did not
however discover that the compound globules are pro-
duced by budding. Upon a few rapid observations he
founded a number of speculations, which are set down
without much attempt at verification. Thus he states
that not only all yeast-cells, but blood-corpuscles also,
consist of six component particles apiece. Finding that
a tube of rain-water, when set in a window, contained
after a few days green globules, he persuaded himself
that these too were almost all sixfold. He concludes
that the component particles come from the air. The

1Rpist. 74, Arc. Nat. (1692). Vol. II, p. 302, pl. 289, fig. 19.
2 Arc. Nat. (1680). Vol. II, pp. 1-14.

220 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

substance of a burning candle turns to water, which may
coagulate and ultimately compose the sixfold corpuscles,
perhaps combining with soot particles as it descends.
The really important discovery made by Leeuwenhoek
was that fermenting wort contains rounded bodies which

give off bubbles of gas.

Bacteria?

In 1683 Leeuwenhoek wrote a letter to the Royal
Society which contains the first mention of bacteria.
He had been writing and speculating upon saliva, and
had searched the saliva of the human mouth for animal-
cules without finding any. It then occurred to him to
ask whether the teeth might lodge animalcules dis-
charged from the salivary ducts. He tells us that,
though his own teeth were scrupulously clean and par-
ticularly sound for his age (about fifty), the lens revealed
a white deposit upon them. This deposit was found to
contain minute rods, some of which showed either a
steady or a gyratory movement. Others were very
minute, of rounded form, and moved with remarkable
velocity. The largest of all, which were either straight
or beht, were motionless. The teeth of an old man, which
were never cleansed, contained among others large rods
which exhibited snake-like undulations. Rubbing the
teeth with strong vinegar did not kill the moving bodies,
but they became quiescent when detached and placed in
a mixture of vinegar and saliva, or vinegar and water.
Nine years later Leeuwenhoek returned to the subject.
Living particles were no longer met with in his teeth,
and he was at a loss to explain why, until it’ occurred to
him that he was now accustomed to drink hot coffee

1 Phil. Trans., No. 159 (1684), also Arc. Mat. (1683) ; Epist. 75, Arc. Nat.
(1692); Epist. 110, Hp. Soc. R. (1697). Vol. II, pp. 39-48, 307-311, Vol. III, 35-6.

LEEUWENHOEK 221

every morning. This, he thought, might have killed
the animalcules, and his conclusion was confirmed by
finding that on the back teeth, which were less exposed
to the hot drink, plenty of them were still to be found.
In this letter of 1692 he describes and figures angulated
rods which moved by rotation on their long axes. In
1697 he tells how he pulled out a decayed tooth, and
found that the cavity abounded in moving particles.

Here Leeuwenhoek’s study of bacteria comes to an
end, except that in 1718, being then over eighty, he
speculated a little as to the possibility of bacteria being
introduced into the mouth by the rinsing of drinking-
vessels in water abounding with infusorial life. After
Leeuwenhoek nothing more was done to elucidate the
bacteria till 1786, when O. F. Miiller described and
figured several kinds.

A Microscopical Fraud

It may relieve the reader’s attention to mention
a curious fraud which Leeuwenhoek exposes. A long-
forgotten writer, Noel Argonne, who used the nom-de-
plume of Vigneul-Marville, and whom Voltaire describes
(not quite accurately) as the only Carthusian monk who
ever made a contribution to literature, relates! that
on arriving in London he and his friends were solicited
to buy curiosities. Among these was a microscope,
z.e. a lens mounted on tortoiseshell, which he was
assured was ‘‘si excellent, qu'il ne faisoit pas seulement
voir les cirons (mites) les plus imperceptibles; mais aussi
les atomes d’Epicure, la matiere subtile de Décartes (sic),
les vapeurs de la terre, celles que notre corps transpire,
et les influences des Astres.” On looking at the exhibi-

1 Mélanges Whistoire et de littérature. 12mo. Paris. 1699-1701. Vol. II,
p. 426.

222 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS

tor’s coat from a distance of five or six paces, an
infinity of little worms seemed to be devouring the
cloth, When the same trick was practised upon
Leeuwenhoek, he discovered that holes had been ground
in the lens, into which minute objects could be placed.
The objects, whatever they were, would of course appear
enormous when judged to be several feet off.’

ESTIMATE OF LEEUWENHOEK

The modern biologist, whose task is lightened by the
improvements of many preceding generations, who has
at command microscopes which do not fatigue the eyes
and text-books which summarise what is already known,
finds it hard to put himself in the place of the minute
observer of the seventeenth century. The animal and
vegetable kingdoms seemed vast and intricate even to
those who never gave a thought to animals smaller than
insects, or to plants smaller than duckweed. Before the
objects easily visible without a lens had been tolerably
classed, the microscope revealed a new world of minute
organisms, many of them small enough to be wafted by
the lightest summer breeze. We need not wonder that
Leeuwenhoek should have studied many things super-
ficially ; it is enough for his fame that he studied some
things carefully, kindled curiosity, and opened out
inquiries which others have pursued much farther.

No one would reckon Leeuwenhoek among the great
philosophers. He held, however, decided opinions on
two great biological questions which already engaged
attention, the question of spontaneous generation, and
that of the origin of species. The reasoning of Redi,
supported by his own observations, convinced him that
when living things seemed to arise independently in

1Epist. 139, Zp. Soc. R. (1701). Vol. III, pp. 346-354.

LEEUWENHOEK 223

tissues or infusions, they had always been really intro-
duced from without. He had no doubt of the fixity
of species, and expressed himself in language very
similar to that employed by Linneus in the next
generation :—‘‘ Omnia animalcula,” says Leeuwenhoek,
“quantumvis vilia ac despecta, originem suam debent illis
animalculis, gue initio rerum creata fuere, usdemque
gaudent perfectionrbus.”
1Cont. Arc. Nat., Epist. 121 (argumentum).

SECTION VI. EARLY STUDIES IN
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.

A CONNECTED history of Comparative Anatomy, which
is impossible in a volume like this, would be bound
to dwell upon the labours of the anatomists and
physiologists of the period between 1545 and 1650.
Some of the most eminent belong to the school of
Padua, which was founded by Vesalius and continued
by Falloppio and Fabricius; Coiter, a Dutchman, and
our own William Harvey got their training in Padua.
The pupils of Falloppio and Fabricius, besides anatomists,
who in other cities of Italy or of France pursued
the same studies, compared monkeys and animals of still
lower grade with man; some attended to the develop-
ment of mammals and birds. The naturalist Belon
set the example of close comparison by figuring on
opposite pages the skeletons of a man and a bird, and
lettering the corresponding bones by the same letters ;
this was as early as 1555. In the second half of the
seventeenth century the succession was kept up by
Malpighi in Italy, by Perrault in France, and by Tyson
in England.

REDI 225

FRANCESCO REDI?
1626-1698

Osservazioni intorno alle Vipere. 4to. Firenze. 1664.

Esperienze intorno alla generazione degl’ Insetti. 4to. Firenze. 1668.
Translation by Mab Bigelow. Chicago. 1909.

Esperienzi intorno diversi cosi naturali. 4to. Firenze. 1671.

Osservazioni intorno agli animali viventi che si trovano negli animali viventi.
4to. Firenze. 1684.

Redi, a naturalist of wide curiosity, is remembered as
having examined a variety of animals, and investigated
experimentally the question of spontaneous generation.
He studied at Pisa, attracted notice by his talents and
learning, and was made physician to the dukes of

Tuscany, among others to Cosmo ITI, Swammerdam’s
duke.

Observations on Vipers *

Once when a large number of vipers had been pro-
cured in order to make a theriacum for the duke of
Tuscany, the question was raised whether the viper’s
tooth merely made a wound, or whether poison was
injected. One learned man assured the company on the
authority of Pliny and Galen that the smallest drop
of viper’s venom, if swallowed, would kill man or
animal. A viper-catcher, who was present, took some
of the fresh venom, put it into a glass of water, and
swallowed it, offering to drink as much more as they
pleased. Venom was administered by the mouth to
various animals without effect. Viper’s gall, reputed to
be a deadly poison, was spread harmlessly upon fresh
wounds. Animals were caused to swallow all the liquids
which could be extracted from a viper’s head, but

1 Redi does not come very well into this section; I can only plead that he
would not have come better into any other.

2 Oss. intorno alle Vipere.
P

226 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

no ill effects were observed. Only when fresh venom
was applied to wounds did death ever follow. Redi,
who no doubt made the experiments, went on to
examine the poison-gland and poison-tooth of the viper.
He seems to have concluded that the tooth was only
channelled, instead of being perforated by the poison-
duct, as it really is.

The Generation of Insects*

This treatise is historically important because it
dispelled ancient superstitions by direct experiments.
It is a pity that Redi’s decisive proofs, which might
have been related very concisely, should be loaded with
two hundred pages of discussion. The question to be
settled was whether, as Aristotle had taught, insects
could be generated spontaneously by putrefaction. Redi
proved experimentally that the flesh of the same animal
might yield more than one kind of fly, while the same
fly might be hatched from different kinds of flesh. He
saw the flies laying their eggs in flesh, and dissected
egos out of their ovaries. The larve and pupe of
common flesh-haunting flies were noted and compared.
It was thus proved that the generation of a particular
maggot or fly in flesh did not depend upon the kind
of flesh, but on the kind of fly which had got access
to it. Flesh was placed in bottles, some of which were
left open, while others were closed with paper or gauze.
The open bottles produced larvee, pupz and flies, while
the closed bottles produced none, though flies, attracted
by the odour, strove to enter, and in some cases laid
their eggs on the gauze.

Among the baseless fables handed down from ancient
authors was the Bugonia fable, well-known to readers of.

1 Esp. intorno alla generazione degl’ Insetti.

REDI 227

the fourth Georgic. Redi demolished this by pointing
out that flies, and not bees, appear in corrupt flesh. He
did not however go on to explain the old belief by
pointing out that one flesh-haunting fly (Eristalis) is so
bee-like that it easily deceives an ordinary observer.
Pliny’s statement that buried crabs produce scorpions
was tested, but not confirmed; it was the same with
another belief drawn from Pliny, viz. that the hind legs
of the frog are formed by the splitting of the tail of the
tadpole.

Unfortunately Redi did not trust in every case to the
experimental method, which he had indirectly learned
from Galileo; his scientific reputation suffers by one
unconfirmed speculation. Having tried to explain
insect-galls on the supposition that they always begin
with an egg laid in the tissues of the plant, he was
perplexed by the cases in which no hole or scar showed
where the egg had been passed in. In order to explain
how a grub might occupy a nut whose shell seemed to
be intact, Redi threw out the suggestion that the same
virtue which produces flowers and fruits may also pro-
duce grubs, and this guess he was rash enough to
publish without verification. By the facile hypothesis
of a “vivifying principle” he explained the worms in
the heads of sheep and deer. One of his pupils, Vallis-
nieri, afterwards showed how the egg was brought into
the rose-gall, while Malpighi examined the young nut,
and found both the hole and the egg. Redi was then
obliged to apologise for his random guess. In spite of
a few unlucky mistakes he did good service by furnish-
ing a simple explanation of cases of propagation which
had been reputed mysterious. His experiments im-
pressed Swammerdam, Leeuwenhoek and Ray, and
before many years had passed scientific minds at least

228 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

were persuaded that only microscopic organisms, and
perhaps some internal parasites, originated spontaneously.
The rooting-out of the theory from these last refuges
does not come within the period covered by our history.

Birds’ Gizzards}

Redi ridicules Allian’s explanation of the swallowing
of stones by the crane, viz. that they serve partly for
food and partly for ballast, for the stones, he says truly,
are found in birds that never fly. Borelli had investi-
gated the matter, and found reasons for supposing that
the stones aid in digestion. He passed glass bulbs into
the gullet, and found that they were pulverised in the
gizzard. Redi shows that solid glass balls and bullets
are scratched; open bulbs, if they happen to pass
through uninjured, are filled with an acid fluid, which
he takes to be the secretion of the cesophageal glands.
Trituration, he remarks, does not suffice for digestion ;
there must be ‘‘ fermentation” as well.

Lnfe-history of the Eel?

Redi satisfied himself by personal inquiry that eels
visit the sea in autumn, for the purpose, as he supposed,
of egg-laying. He had also seen the elvers ascending
the rivers in spring. Aristotle had taught that eels lay
no eggs, and may perhaps be generated from earth-
worms.

There is much more to tell about Redi, but we must
content ourselves with glimpses of his work.

1 Hsp. intorno diversi cost naturalt.
2 Oss. intorno agli animali viventi, &c.

PERRAULT AND HIS COLLEAGUES 229

PERRAULT AND HIS COLLEAGUES IN THE FRENCH
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

The French Philosophical Transactions (Mémovres de
l Académie des Sciences), from 1666 to the middle of
the eighteenth century, contain many curious disserta-
tions on natural history. The early volumes, which are
of most historical interest, are unfortunately rare, but
pretty full abstracts are to be found in Berryat, Recuedl
des Mémoires, partie Francoise.

The writers from whom the following notes are taken
will first be enumerated :—

(1) Claude Perrault (1613-88), though educated as
a physician, turned architect, translated Vitruvius, and
designed the colonnade of the east front of the Louvre.
He was elder brother to Charles Perrault of the Contes
des Fées. French historians of science reckon Perrault
as the reviver of Comparative Anatomy, but this is to
ignore the anatomists of the school of Padua, besides
Eustachio, Coiter, Riolan and Swammerdam.

(2) Jean de Méry (1645-1722) was educated as a
surgeon, but anatomy and natural history absorbed his
attention to such a point that he neglected practice and
society. His anatomy of the ear and his account of the
foetal circulation gave him a great professional reputation.

(3) Frangois Poupart (1661-1709), though nominally
a surgeon, was devoted to natural history, geometry
and philosophy. He was an excellent anatomist and a
close observer, who long endured the neglect which
befalls those who fail to behave like other people. It
was a surprise to many when this retiring and ill-drest
man was brought into the Academy of Sciences at the
time of its reorganisation in 1699.

230 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

(4) Geoffroy the younger (Claude Joseph, 1685-1752)
was younger brother to Etienne Frangois Geoffroy, and
uncle to Etienne Louis Geoffroy, who described the
insects of Paris.

(5) Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708), nephew
to the great physician, Fagon, was a celebrated botanist,
professor of botany at the Jardin du Roi. He was a
great traveller, who explored the Alps, the Pyrenees,
Greece and Asia Minor in search of plants. In this and
other ways he acquired a great knowledge of flowers,
though he was only superficially acquainted with their
structure; he rejected, for instance, the sexuality of
flowering plants. His system, which was long popular,
and was only driven out by the Sexual System of
Linnzeus, was founded on the general form of the
flower. Like Ray, Tournefort retained the old division
into trees and herbs; he abandoned or else overlooked
Ray’s division into Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons.
His classification was methodically exhibited; the
genera, which he was long thought to have invented,
had their characters clearly set forth, while figures of
the flower and fruit of every genus gave welcome
help to the reader. He succeeded also in retaining
a number of natural families which had been estab-
lished by his predecessors. Tournefort’s patron, the
abbé Bignon, is commemorated by our Bignonia (so
named by Tournefort); Aubriet, the artist who accom-
panied him to the east, and who drew the beautiful
figures of plants for his Elements of Botany, by our
Aubretia.

(6) During the first half of the eighteenth century
Réaumur (see p. 245) was a leading contributor to the
Mémoires de lV Académie des Sciences, discoursing upon
the growth of molluscan shells, the locomotion of

PERRAULT AND HIS COLLEAGUES 231

mollusks, starfishes and meduse, the fixation of Mytilus,
the silk of spiders, and a world of other things.

Comparative Anatomy, chiefly of Mammals

Perrault’s descriptions and dissections of animals
which had been kept in the royal menagerie were
reprinted in two magnificent folios) intended to set
forth the glory of Louis XIV as well as the wonders of
nature. As a rule they do no more than set down the
facts of structure. Luminous general propositions are
not to be expected in an age when museums were few,
and anatomical records meagre. Perrault’s Essais de
Physique’ contain popular discussions on the mechanism
and senses of animals. Here are found short notices
of the retractile claw of the lion, the pointed papillee
on its tongue, the barbs and barbules of a feather, the
ruminant stomach, the spiral valve of a shark’s intestine
(previously described by Swammerdam and Willughby),
the tracheze of an insect, &c.

Duverney (1693) contributes a comparative study of
the human hand and the lion’s paw.

Birds

Perrault (1666, 1671-6) investigates with much success
the structure of feathers, illustrating the subject by ex-
cellent diagrams, drawn as if from enlarged solid models,
which show the barbs and barbules of a flying bird and
an ostrich.? He explains the difference between the
proximal and distal barbules, the use of the hooks, and

1 Mémoires pour servir a Vhistoire naturelle, Paris, 1671-6.

2 Physique is not limited to what we call Physics, but includes all the
physical and natural sciences.

3 Perrault’s figure of an ostrich feather is copied in Owen’s Comparative
Anatomy, Vol. II, p. 234.

232 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

the interlocking, which he compares to that of a latch
and its hasp. All these features are illustrated by an
excellent model, better than those usually given in recent
text-books. Perrault dwells too on the advantages of
the curvature of the vane, on the power of inclining the
wing-quills, and on the facility with which ruffled barbs
can be adjusted by stroking; in the ostrich, as he
shows, the barbs are unconnected, and the quills cannot
be variously inclined. He points out the action of the
head, neck and legs in the flight of large birds, and
dispels the fallacy that birds fly by virtue of their low
specific gravity.

Poupart (1669) figures late stages of developing
feathers, showing among other things the formative
papilla and the pile of dry cones (German Seele), into
which it ultimately shrinks.

Méry (1689) describes the respiratory movements of
a bird. He remarks that in a live goose the thorax
dilates during inspiration, the sternum receding from
the backbone, and the ribs from one another. The air-
sacs, which had been described and figured by Perrault,
become distended as the thorax expands.

The most interesting bird-paper of this age is Méry’s
description of the woodpecker’s tongue (1709). Borelli
and Perrault had already treated the same subject, but
Méry aspired to give a more exact description than
either of his predecessors, and his account has become
celebrated as a masterpiece in the delineation and inter-
pretation of natural contrivances. The adaptation which
he explains makes it possible for the woodpecker to
protrude at pleasure a stiff and slender tongue, long
enough to probe the burrows of wood-boring insects.
When the mouth is opened, nothing is seen of the
tongue-apparatus except a pointed, horny scale, which

PERRAULT AND HIS COLLEAGUES 233

[in the purely insectivorous woodpeckers] is armed with
minute, backward-pointing teeth [Méry says six on
each side, but the number may be much greater than
six]. To render the tip of the tongue yet more effective
in picking up insects, it is covered with a viscid fluid,
the secretion of large salivary glands. The hyoid bone,
which, as usual, supports the tongue, is straight, slender,
and about two inches long.’ It gives off behind a pair
of very slender branches (cornua), which are no less than
six and a half inches long. When the tongue is at rest,
the cornua curve round the sides of the neck, pass over
the top of the head, and then, bending to one side, end
together in the right nostril [sometimes in the left one].
The top of the skull is excavated by a groove, in which
the cornua lie, and the hyoid, with the bases of its
cornua, are enclosed in a sheath, whose cavity opens into
the mouth.? Méry goes on to describe the muscles of
the tongue. There isa pair of protrusors, which connect
the cornua with the lower jaw ; when they contract, the
cornua and tongue are drawn forwards and protrude
from the mouth. Two elastic ligaments attach the tips
of the cornua to the nostril; these become stretched
during protrusion, and during retraction help to return
the cornua to their position of rest. A pair of retractor
muscles make the windpipe their fixed point, and are
inserted into the sheath. Other muscles raise, depress,
or bend the tongue to oneside. The long protrusors are
wound about the cornua, and the long retractors about
the windpipe—curious examples of economy of space.
By these arrangements the requisite length in both
cornua and muscles is obtained, while the parts are so

1 The dimensions given relate to Méry’s “‘ piver,” our green woodpecker.

2In humming-birds, which like the woodpeckers have a protrusible tongue,
both the furrow on the skull and the sheath are double.

234 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

disposed as not to interfere with the movements of the
head, neck, or jaws. It was impossible for Méry to
trace the origin of the bony supports of the woodpecker’s
tongue, but in our evolutionary age no naturalist can
fail to remark that they are an extreme modification of
one part of the gill-bearing skeleton of a fish."

The Frog

Méry (1684) describes the skin and tongue of the
frog. He remarks the large subcutaneous cavities and
the slight connection of the skin with the underlying
muscles.

The form and position of the frog’s tongue? lead Méry
to the conclusion that it is darted out of the mouth for
the capture of prey. He took little pains to verify his
supposition, observing only a single frog, and not ven-
turing to put forth his explanation as a positive fact.

Mollusca

Mytilus and Anodon were both favourite studies about
this time. Van Heide (supra, p. 218) had already
described Mytilus, and Swammerdam* had made notes
on Anodon, but these early attempts left plenty of room
for more elaborate studies. Poupart, Méry and Réaumur
each added something to what was previously known.

Poupart (1706) explains the action of the ligament
and adductors in opening and closing the bivalve shell.
He describes the heart of Anodon, but finds neither

1 Readers who cannot examine Méry’s figure of the woodpecker’s tongue
will get a notion of the parts from Owen’s Comp. Anat. of Vertebrates, Vol. II,
pp. 58, 152, and figs. 33, 77. See also Newton’s Dictionary of Birds, articles
Hyoid, Tongue and Woodpecker.

2The peculiar attachment is remarked by Aristotle (Hist. Anim., IV, 9),
who wrongly explains that the tongue is in the frog a vocal organ.

3 Biblia Nature, p. 189.

PERRAULT AND HIS COLLEAGUES 235

arteries nor veins in connection with it. The following
statement is remarkable: “J’ay vu par hazard que la
grande espéce de Moule d’étang, dont j’ay parlé, volti-
geoit sur la superficie de l’eau.”

Méry (1710) notes the enclosure of the rectum of
Anodon in the heart, and describes the pericardium.
He too believes that Anodon can rise to the surface of
the water. He calls the external gills the ovaries, not
an unnatural mistake, seeing that in the breeding season
they are loaded with eggs.

Insects and Crayfish

Poupart (1704) describes the structure, life-history
and mode of life of the ant-lion. He is struck with the
resemblance of the imago to the dragon-fly, and calls
both of them “demoiselles.” His figures are excellent.
In another memoir he gives an account of the frothing
hopper (the insect found in cuckoo-spit).

Geoffroy the younger gives in 1709 an account of
“erabs’ eyes,” calcareous concretions found in the cray-
fish, and at this time regularly prescribed by physicians.
Gesner, Agricola and Belon had said that the concretions
form in the brain; Geoffroy verifies the statement of
Van Helmont that they form in the stomach. He shows
that they are corroded and ultimately dissolved at the
time of moult, when the lining of the stomach and
intestine is shed; he goes too far, however, in saying
that both stomach and intestine are destroyed at this
time.

The astronomer Maraldi (1712) determined the angles
of the rhombic plates which form the bases of the cells
of the hive-bee. Kcenig (1739) showed the minute
correspondence of these angles with the form most
economical of wax. There is reason, however, to

236 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

believe that the accuracy of the work of the bees has
been exaggerated.

De la Hire and Sédileau (1730) describe and figure
the scale-insect of the orange-tree.

The Earthworm

Poupart (1699) demonstrates the hermaphroditism of
the earthworm, having observed two individuals in con-
gress and noted the reciprocal insertion of “ petits
boutons” into “ petites ouvertements.”

Plants

Tournefort (1693) describes the ejection of seeds.
Among other things he shows how the oblique fibres of
a leguminous pod (which he calls muscles) twist the
valves and throw out the seeds. The power of move-
ment in plants depended, he thought, upon such
muscles.

These French memoirs of natural history spread a
conviction that some knowledge of the world of life
should be brought within the reach of everybody.
Rollin, author of L’ Histoire Ancienne, desired that the
discoveries of the academicians, which he had read with
pleasure, should be explained to young persons, and his
friend Pluche wrote a Spectacle de la Nature (8 vols.
12mo. Paris. 1732 &c.) which attempted to realise
Rollin’s purpose. Richard Bradley’s Philosophical
Account of the Works of Nature (8vo. Lond. 1721
and 1739) and Templeman’s Curious Remarks and
Observations extracted from the History and Memoirs
of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris (2 vols.
8vo. 1753-4) were English publications of the same
character. Bonnet was incited to study natural history
by reading Pluche’s account of the ant-lion, and

PERRAULT AND HIS COLLEAGUES 237

Humboldt many years later found that the Spectacle
of Nature was highly esteemed in Spanish America.
Professed students make light of such books, but those
who appreciate the importance of beginnings will not
despise these early attempts to diffuse more widely an
elementary knowledge of the natural sciences.

SOME ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES OF REDI AND
PERRAULT

Thomas Willis’ treatise De Anima Brutorum (8Vvo.
Lond. 1672) interests the naturalist because it contains
an anatomical description of certain invertebrate animals.
Willis was too busy to undertake this part of the book,
and handed it over to Edmund King and John Master,
who produced much better accounts of the oyster, cray-
fish and earthworm than had been seen before; the
anatomy of an insect (silkworm) is added, but this is
taken from Malpighi. The illustrative figures, based
on careful dissection, surpassed all previous work of
the kind, and were often quoted or copied by foreign
naturalists. .

In the oyster the four gills, the labial palps, the
adductor muscle and the typhlosole are shown, but the
nervous system is neither figured nor mentioned. It
is pointed out that in the crayfish the flesh is covered
by the “bones,” not as in vertebrates, the bones by the
flesh.1 Attention is called to the inverted position
(in comparison with a vertebrate) of the chief organs of
the crayfish, to the inclusion of the nerve-cord within
the sternal ossicles, and to the gastric teeth. In the

1This is remarked also by Perrault (Hssais de Physique, Vol. III, pp. 80-1
and by Swammerdam (Biblia Nature, p. 444).

238 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

earthworm the locomotive function of the sete is ex-
plained, and the reproductive organs are figured and
discussed; it was not discovered, however, that the
earthworm is hermaphrodite. The typhlosole and the
dorsal pores are mentioned.

King, afterwards Sir Edmund (1629-1709), took a chief
part in the celebrated operation of transfusing the blood
of a sheep into a man (1667); he is also remembered
as the physician who bled Charles II with a penknife at
the outset of his fatal illness. There is much to say
about Willis, both as an anatomist and as a physician,
but it is not for a naturalist to say it.

Edward Tyson (1650-1708), a London physician, made
careful studies of the structure of a chimpanzee (which
he calls an orang-outang,” an opossum, a porpoise and a
rattlesnake. His account of the chimpanzee was pub-
lished separately; the rest are to be found in the
Philosophical Transactions, where also he figured, but
without description, the ‘“‘cochineel-fly.” It was some-
thing to recognise, as early as 1685, that cochineal was
an insect and nota fruit (supra, p. 208). Tyson figures
also a Teenia, with its head and hooks. He has no
doubt that there is a transition from minerals through
plants and animals to man,* but this was not a con-
clusion drawn from his own observation and reflection.
Such a transition had been a common theme of philoso-
phers, occasionally of anatomists and naturalists also,
ever since the time of Aristotle.

An Essay on Comparative Anatomy was published
anonymously in 1744 by Alexander Munro primus, the

+A general statement of the fact, without precise details, was published
by Redi in 1684. See also Poupart on the reproduction of the earthworm
(supra, p. 236).

2 Orang-Outang, or the Anatomy of a Pygmie. 4to. Lond. 1699.

3 Epistle Dedicatory to Anatomy of a Pygmie.

ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES 239

first of three anatomists of the same name ; it is believed
to be the earliest formal treatise on the subject. The
Essay gives a slight and popular account of the anatomy
of quadrupeds in general, of the dog, cow, fowls in
general, a “stenhil” (also called stannell and stanzel—
kestrel) and fishes. By 1744 sufficient materials existed
in print to furnish a much better elementary sketch
than this.

SECTION VII. THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

JOHANN LEONHARD FRISCH
1666-1743

Beschreibung von allerley Insecten in Teutsch-land, &c. 13 pts. 4to.
Berlin. 1720-38.
Réavmopr is of course the chief figure in this Section, but
before we enter upon Réaumur it will be convenient to
notice his forerunner Frisch, who studied insects in the
same spirit, though with less power, and with none of
the advantages of wealth and position which his great
successor enjoyed.

Frisch, the writer of the first important German
treatise on insects, was rector of a gymnasium in Berlin,
author of several dictionaries, and director of historical
studies under the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He is
also remembered as the introducer of the mulberry into
Prussia. When past fifty he began to publish his Insects
of Germany, which appeared in parts for eighteen years,
and at length included three hundred different insects.
It found plenty of readers, and more than one edition
appeared in his life-time. Then he undertook the Birds
of Germany, and had worked at them for eight years
when death put a stop to his varied labours; the memoir
was completed by one of his sons.

Frisch was a careful and diligent observer, bent not

FRISCH 241

merely upon observing, but upon interpreting the facts
of structure and habit. He takes one insect at a time,
describes its external features, figures it in all its stages,
if possible, and tells all that he has been able to discover
about its mode of life. There is hardly any attempt at
systematic arrangement. The simple microscope is
regularly employed, but it is unusual to find any
mention of internal anatomy. He was solicitous to
study his insects alive, and reared many in his own
house. Writing for the unlearned as well as for pro-
fessed naturalists, he used German names instead of
Latin and Greek. He introduced into Germany the
word insect, regularly used by Pliny, and by this time
quite familiar in France and England. The plates
were engraved from Frisch’s own drawings, the early
ones by his son, Philip Jacob, who was only a boy when
the publication began.

The Field-Cricket*

Frisch begins with the field-cricket. The external
parts are mentioned and figured, and the differences of
the sexes noted. A good account follows of the sound- °
producing organs on the wing-covers of the male, and
the act of shrilling is described from life. The file and
resonator are recognised, but the minute structure of
the file is not discovered. The cerci are said, probably
with truth, to serve as feelers, which in the darkness of
the burrow perceive any moving thing which may
approach the cricket from behind. The hind legs and
their use in leaping or digging, as well as the ovipositor
of the female, are shortly noticed. Frisch is very cir-
cumstantial about the mode of life, having kept crickets
in captivity from hatching to old age. He tells us that

1Pt. I, ch. i-v.
Q

242 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

they feed upon all kinds of vegetable matter. They
drink much, but do not choose standing water, pre-
ferring dew, or raindrops on the grass. The burrows
of the field-cricket run in a horizontal or an inclined
direction; vertical burrows might fill with water in
rainy weather. The crickets throw out the earth with
their hind legs, or pull it out with their jaws. Their
burrows are excavated in a dry, sunny place, not over-
grown with grass; those of the male cricket are easily
found, for they are quite open, and enlarged towards
the entrance. Here the amorous male sits and sings, to
charm any female that may be within hearing, and his
burrow is made wide enough to lodge his mate as well
as himself. The female cricket closes the burrow when
she has laid her eggs. Young crickets make deep holes,
but crickets of the second year make shallow holes
as if they foresaw that they would die before winter.
Crickets live near together, but do not share the same
holes, except for a short period when mated. The
females are prone to bite, and even to devour the males.
The males show rivalry ; one will pursue or defy another,
and they sometimes butt at one another like goats. The
impregnation of the female by a spermatophore and the
action of the ovipositor in egg-laying are carefully
described. The long yellow eggs are laid in batches of
about thirty. Fresh-hatched crickets cluster together ;
they are at first pale, but soon darken. Four moults
are gone through before maturity is attained; the
cricket eats up its cast skin. After the third moult the
wings and the ovipositor become evident.

Readers of the Natural History of Selborne will
remember the letter on the field-cricket. Frisch has
not the charm of Gilbert White, but on this particular
topic he has more information to communicate. His

FRISCH 243

writings, like those of nearly all foreign naturalists,
were unknown to White.
Hydrophilus*

Frisch tells us that he had not meant to study
aquatic insects, but that they drew him insensibly to
the water, and even into it. The large size of Hydro-
philus no doubt attracted his attention, and he kept the
beetles long in captivity for the purpose of studying
their mode of life. Throughout the autumn and winter
they lived happily (in some kind of aquarium, I
suppose), but when spring came round they strove to
leave the water, and died if prevented from doing so.
Frisch recognised the larva and pupa, but never found
the egg-cocoon. He noticed the arched attitude which
the pupa takes when resting in its underground cell, as
well as the spines which keep it from touching the
ground, and demonstrated in the adult beetle the
presence of an air-space beneath the elytra, into which
the spiracles open. When he removed one of the elytra

a rhythmical pulsation of the air beneath the folded
wing was clearly seen.?

German Cochineal ?

German cochineal is the product of a scale-insect
(Porphyrophora polomca), which makes galls on the
roots of Polygonum cocciferum. Frisch describes the
galls, the gall-forming insect, and the cottony threads
which issue from its back. His figures are so minute
and so rude that they are barely recognisable. He
quotes ancient monastic writings to prove that the
scarlet dye yielded by this insect was once largely used

1 Pt, IL, ch. vii, viii.

2The pulsation can be observed without injuring the beetle,
3Pt. V, ch. ii.

244 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

in Germany, and blames the laziness of those who pre-
ferred to buy the costly exotic cochineal instead of
gathering the dye-stuff of their own country.

From the scale-insects which Frisch kept for observa-
tion ichneumons were hatched; he supposed that this
was the regular transformation, the scale-insect being
the larva and the ichneumon the imago of the same
species. This mistake is the more surprising because
Frisch had already described the parasitic habits of the
ichneumons. Breyn some years later corrected Frisch’s
error, and pointed out the true winged male of the
scale-insect. In the preface to the last part of his
Insects of Germany Frisch humbly confesses his error.
One thread of his warp had been broken ; he could only
hope that the rest of the web was sound. In this last
preface the old man (he was now past seventy) says
that if his activity and his eyesight should be preserved
a little longer he would set about the fourth hundred of
his descriptions of insects. But this was not to be; he
published no more upon insects.

RENE-ANTOINE FERCHAULT DE REAUMUR
1683-1757

Mémoires pour servir 4 histoire des Insectes. 6 vols. 4to. Paris. 1734-42.

I have found no better account of the life of Réaumur
than that written by Cuvier for the Boographie Uni-
verselle, and offer a translation of this short biography
as an introduction to the Hestowre des Insectes. The
words in square brackets are additions.

“Réaumur, one of the most ingenious naturalists and
physicists that France has produced, was born at La
Rochelle in 1683. He was the son of a judge of appeal

REAUMUR 245

in that city. After beginning his education in his
native place, he went on to the Jesuits at Poitiers, and
afterwards ‘studied law at Bourges. A propensity to
observe nature then took possession of him, and ample
means enabled him to pursue this taste with youthful
eagerness. He laid a foundation for his future career in
the serious study of mathematics, and when he felt
himself prepared to try his strength with professed
naturalists and physicists, betook himself to Paris. This
was in 1703, when he was not yet twenty years old.
President Hénault, a relative, made him known to men
of science, and in 1708, being then twenty-four and
having already contributed some geometrical papers to
the Academy of Sciences, he was admitted to that
learned body.

“For nearly fifty years Réaumur was one of the most
active and useful members; his labours dealt with
industrial arts, general physics, and natural history
successively, and hardly a year passed in which he did
not publish some memoirs of great importance or
interest. He was early pledged to co-operate in a
description of the mechanical arts, which the Academy
had undertaken. Not confining himself to a mere
record of the state of the various industries, he sought
to improve them by fresh applications of scientific
principles, while at the same time he enlarged our
knowledge of natural phenomena by his industrial
experience. In his account of rope-making (1711), he
proved by conclusive experiments that, contrary to the
prevalent opinion, torsion diminishes the strength of
cords. In 1713, when engaged upon a description of
gold wire-drawing, he demonstrated the extraordinary
ductility of certain metals. In 1715 the investigation
of the colours of false pearls made him acquainted with

246 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

the singular substance which gives a lustre to the scales
of fishes, and this led him to study the development and
growth of the scales themselves. These inquiries became
linked to researches which he had carried on ever since
1709, into the formation and growth of the shells of
mollusks, which he showed not to arise by intussuscep-
tion [or incorporation of new matter with every part of
a pre-existing structure ; Réaumur maintained that the
shell grows by the addition of layers]. In 1717 he
attended to pearl-formation, and sought to compel bi-
valves to produce pearls. When he had occasion, in
1715, to describe the turquoise mines of the south of
France, and the methods in use for producing the blue
colour, he discovered that turquoises are the teeth of the
large [extinct] animal, since described under the name of
mastodon [this is true only of the so-called occidental
turquoise, which forms on teeth and bones after long
burial in the ground]. But his most important researches
in technical science were those upon iron and steel,
published as a separate work in 1722 under the
title Tracté sur lart de convertir le fer en acier, et
dadoucir le fer fondu. Our forges were then almost
in their infancy, and we made no steel; all that was
required in the arts was brought to us from abroad. It
was only by innumerable experiments that Réaumur
came to discover the art of steel-making. The Duke of
Orleans, then Regent of France, proposed to remunerate
him for this service by a pension of twelve thousand
livres. At this date no tin-plate was made in France ;
all came to us from Germany; Réaumur succeeded in
making it by a cheap method, which he published in
1725. In his numerous experiments he had more than
once occasion to remark that cast metals, in cooling,
assumed regular forms; and this led him in 1724 to

REAUMUR 247

give a first sketch of metallic crystallography. The
manufacture of porcelain also interested him ; he sent to
China for the materials, and busied himself in searching
for similar minerals in France. His memoirs on this
subject date from 1727 to 1729; his attempts were not
entirely successful, but Darcet, and especially Macquer,
following the indications given by him, were more
fortunate, and succeeded in discovering the fine hard
porcelain which we now employ for so many purposes.
Réaumur also devised the hard white glass, still known
as Réaumur’s porcelain, of which he published an account
in 1739. We owe to him the first attempts made to
introduce into France the artificial incubation of eggs,
practised from time immemorial in Egypt. He showed
how to preserve eggs by smearing them with fat, how
to hinder the evaporation of spirituous liquors by
mercury, and suggested many other processes of greater
or less practical utility. He improved the hanging of
carriage bodies and the fitting of axles. In 1711 he
rediscovered a mollusk which yields a dye answering to
the purple of the ancients. He sought to turn to account
the silk of spiders,’ and it is a singular fact that his
memoir on spiders’ silk, dated 1710, was translated into
the Manchu language at the request of the Emperor
of China, who wished to read in his own language a
paper whose title had moved his curiosity. In physics
Réaumur is best known by his thermometer, which he
brought out in 1731. The freezing and boiling-points
of water are taken as fixed points, and the interval
divided into 80 degrees, that number being chosen on
account of the accidental circumstance that the alcohol
which he used dilated +885 of its bulk [on being brought
from the freezing-point to the boiling-point of water];
[ Spiders’ silk proved to be too fine and therefore too costly.]

248 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

this mode of graduation has since been abandoned in
favour of a centesimal division. As the fixed points
adopted by Réaumur are still retained, all modern
thermometers are in a sense Réaumur thermometers ;
it must, however, be admitted that the original concep-
tion belongs to Newton. In the course of the numerous
experiments which this invention involved, Réaumur
made curious observations on the increase or diminution
of heat produced by the mixing of liquids, and also on
freezing mixtures. He collected with great care observa-
tions on the temperature of various places as registered
by his own thermometer, and gave an active impulse
to this branch of meteorology. He observed that a
freezing temperature does not prevent the evaporation
of snow.

“In spite of the importance and practical utility of
the publications of which we have just given a very
brief account, there was yet more novelty and interest
in his natural history memoirs. Besides what he had
already written about the scales of fishes, the growth of
shells and petrified teeth, he described in 1710 the
modes of locomotion of many mollusks, star fishes, and
other invertebrate animals. In 1712 he made known
the singular phenomena relating to the reproduction of
cast limbs of crayfishes and lobsters. In 1715 he gave
a detailed account of the torpedo shock, and of the
organ by which it is produced, but electrical phenomena
were then too imperfectly understood to make a thorough
explanation possible. He examined several of our rivers,
whose sand contains gold, and wrote a memoir on them
in 1718. The vast layers of fossil shells, known in
Touraine as Faluns, did not escape his notice; he
described them in 1720. He investigated in 1723 the

1[The first descriptions of the ambulacral feet was given by Réaumur.]

REAUMUR 249

light emitted by certain mollusks, and especially by
the Pholadide. It will be seen that Réaumur was by no
means unacquainted with physiology. Experiments as
ingenious as they were decisive, showed him in 1752
the singular difference in the digestive organs of birds
of prey, whose stomach acts on the food only by means
of a solvent liquid, and those of grain-eating birds, in
which a very powerful muscular gizzard exerts a pressure
sufficiently great to crush and pulverise extremely hard
substances.”

[ Réaumur’s experiments on the digestion of birds,! are
memorable in the history of physiology. Seeking to
clear up the question whether food in the stomach is
merely triturated, or whether it undergoes a chemical
change, and in that case whether the change most
resembles solution or putrefaction, he made a number
of ingenious experiments on a captive kite. Small
metal tubes, whose ends were closed by fine gratings,
were filled with pieces of meat and offered to the bird in
its food. When the kite, according to custom, rejected
the tubes with other indigestible matter, the contents
were carefully examined. The meat, though protected
against trituration, wa: found to be partly dissolved ; it
exhibited no signs of putrefactive change. Even frag-
ments of bone were more or less corroded. Vegetable
matter on the other hand was hardly acted on. The
tubes contained besides the remains of food a yellow
fluid of bitter taste; large quantities of this were col-
lected by tubes filled with pieces of sponge, which could
be squeezed after rejection from the stomach. With
this fluid Réaumur attempted artificial digestion, and
though complete success was not achieved he was at
least able to show that gastric digestion differs altogether

1 Mém. Acad. Sci., 1752.

250 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

from putrefactive change. When his kite died, Réaumur
carried on the experiments with dogs and sheep. These
results were not forgotten, and Réaumur’s method became
still more productive in the hands of Spallanzani. |

“But of all the works of Réaumur, the most remarkable
are the Mémoires pour servir d 0 Histoire des Insectes,
of which six quarto volumes were issued between 1734
and 1742. This history can never cease to be studied
with the keenest interest by those who would frame an
exact notion of nature, and of the marvellous variety
of means which she employs in the preservation of
organisms apparently so frail and easily destroyed.
Réaumur displays extraordinary sagacity in observing
the special instincts which ensure the safety of these
feeble creatures, and keeps our attention alive by a
continual succession of new and striking contrivances.
His style is somewhat diffuse, but so clear as to render
everything plain, and the facts which he relates are
rigorously true. The History of Insects can be read
with all the interest of the most absorbing romance.
Unfortunately it remains unfinished ; the manuscript of
the seventh volume, bequeathed at the author’s death to
the Academy of Sciences, was in such disorder and so
incomplete as to be unfit for publication. In it Réaumur
had intended to speak of crickets and grasshoppers,
while the beetles were to have occupied the eighth and
following volumes. The six volumes which actually
appeared treat of the remaining orders of insects.
[Cuvier’s rapid summary of the History of Insects is
omitted. |

“The History of Insects had placed Réaumur in the
front rank of naturalists by the time that the first
volumes of the Natural History of Buffon began to
appear. Buffon somewhat eclipsed by the brilliancy of

REAUMUR 251

his style the popularity of the elder naturalist. Réaumur
seems to have been weak enough to feel some jealousy,
and was perhaps concerned in the publication entitled
Letters to an American, the anonymous production of
an Oratorian named Lignac, who lived not far from
Réaumur’s country seat, and often visited him. In this
work Buffon and his associate, Daubenton, were treated
contemptuously, while Réaumur, his works, and his
collections were highly praised. Réaumur was the first
man in France to form tolerably extensive collections
of animals. Brisson, his curator, drew from these col-
lections the chief material for his work on quadrupeds,
and more particularly for his great Ornithology, in six
quarto volumes. These specimens, though imperfectly
cured, and most of them simply dried, passed into the
Royal Cabinet after the death of their first owner, and
long constituted the principal part of the bird collection.
Many of the coloured plates of Buffon were also drawn
from them, which explains the occasional resemblance
between Buffon’s and Brisson’s figures.

“Réaumur’s life passed in tranquillity, part being
spent on his estate in Saintonge, part at his country
house at Bercy, near Paris. He held no official post,
and devoted every moment of his time to science.
Public esteem and influence with the government suf-
ficed to gratify his ambition. In order to oblige a
relative who had been driven to resign the place of
intendant of the order of St. Louis, Réaumur purchased
the office, but only assumed the insignia himself, relin-
quishing the emoluments to his relative. It does not
appear that he was ever married. A fall, which he met
with in 1757 at the chateau of Bermondiére in Maine,
where he was spending his vacation, hastened his death.
He died on 18th October, 1757, at the age of 74.

252 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

Besides the numerous memoirs which he contributed
to the Recewil of the Academy (where also is to be
found his Eloge by Grandjean de Fouchy) and other
published writings, he left behind him 138 portfolios
filled with complete or imperfect works and observations,
as well as innumerable other papers. Among them was
found a large part of his History of the Useful Arts,
almost fit for publication, besides many memoranda for
what still was left unfinished.”

[During the years 1742-57 Réaumur hardly published
anything, and there is no reason to suppose that he
wrote much. We are left to conjecture why a life which
had been so strenuous should close in comparative inertia,
while the concluding volumes of the great History of
Insects remained unwritten. |

THE HISTOIRE DES INSECTES

In 1734, when the first volume of the Histoire des
Insectes appeared, Réaumur was fifty-one, and had still
twenty-three years to live. Linnzeus was a young man
of twenty-seven, who had just completed his journey to
Lapland ; Buffon was already a member of the Academy
of Sciences, but had not as yet paid any attention to
natural history. Swammerdam’s Biblia Nature, though
the author had long been dead, was still unpublished ; it
did not appear until 1737-8.

The Histoire owed its origin to memoirs contributed
by Réaumur to the Academy of Sciences, which were
subsequently enlarged and popularised. The six volumes
which he lived to complete are handsomely printed in
quarto and illustrated by excellent plates. Réaumur
did not draw with his own hand, but he tells us that he
closely directed his artists. The style is flowing and
animated, and few books on natural history are so

REAUMUR 253

pleasant to read. Réaumur found that the descriptions
of insects published before his time were too concise and
dry, and made a point of suppressing technicalities and
discussing questions in which readers who are neither
collectors nor anatomists might be expected to take an
interest. Charm of style is however the least of his
merits ; he was one of the best observers that ever lived
and enriched every topic with a profusion of new facts.

Réaumur’s most notable predecessors, as he remarks,
were more successful in depicting than in describing
insects. Madame Mérian had issued a hundred beautiful
plates of insect-transformations, and had also painted
many of the remarkable insects of Surinam ;! Eleazar
Albin had figured many English lepidoptera with their
larvee ;? Goedart ? and Frisch had bestowed much labour
upon the life-histories of insects. But these works,
though useful to the naturalist, left almost untouched
that field of inquiry which Réaumur called “the indus-
tries of insects,” and this he determined to occupy.

He does not by any means restrict the word Insect to
annulose animals, and it does not shock him that slugs,
star-fishes, sea-anemones, reptiles, and amphibians should
be ranked as insects. All animals, in short, except
quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, come under Réaumur’s
“Insects.” His reason for bringing reptiles into the
insect-class is apparently only this, that reptiles (or
some of them) creep on the ground. “Un Crocodile
seroit un furieux insecte; je n’aurois pourtant aucune
peine a lui donner ce nom.” 4

1Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung und sonderbare Blumennahrung
(1679); Insecta Surinamensia (1705).

2 Natural History of English Insects (1720).
3 Metamorphosis et Hist. Nat. Insectorum (1662-7); translated into English

by Martin Lister (1682).
*Vol. I, p. 68.

254 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

Caterpillars +

The methodical account of caterpillars describes the
variety of external features which they present. How
dreary we find such a collection of obscure differences
when handled by a dull man! Réaumur however
knows how to enliven his account by graphic touches.
When he has to speak of the food-plants of caterpillars,
he remarks that some feed with impunity upon acrid
leaves; this leads him to mention one of the hawk-
moths, whose larva refuses all food except the leaves of
spurge. Réaumur put some of the milky juice of the
spurge upon his own tongue, and at first noticed no
distinct sensation. But in the course of an hour or so
his mouth seemed on fire, and repeated rinsing with
water could not allay the pain. The larva of the hawk-
moth however was ready to drink several drops in
succession of this caustic juice, and experienced no ill
effects. Again, he tells us that many kinds of cater-
pillars which he attempted to rear perished because
provision had not been made to satisfy their special
instincts. Some are in the habit of hiding underground
by day, and must therefore be supplied with loose earth.
Réaumur made this discovery by noticing that some
caterpillars of the cabbage moth (Mamestra brassice)
and the common dagger-moth (Acronycta Psi), which
he had supplied with young cabbage plants, were not
to be found upon them next day. A fresh supply of
caterpillars was procured, and these also disappeared,
but the leaves had been much gnawed, so that Réaumur
began to suspect that the caterpillars had not gone far
away. On searching the earth in the pots, they were
found buried, but at night a visit paid by candle-light

1Vol. I, Mém. ii-iv.

REAUMUR 255

discovered them feeding on the leaves. It is little
observations of this kind which keep alive the attention
of the reader. In the same memoir we have a lively
description of the arts practised by different caterpillars
when alarmed. Some curl themselves up, others sham
dead ; others let themselves fall to the ground; others
run away. A few stand on the defensive, and execute
movements of various kinds, which possibly inspire
terror.

Réaumur had to contend with one very serious
difficulty. Many of the insects which he wished to
point out had no fixed names, either popular or scientific.
Sometimes he hits upon a name of his own, and these
are often happily chosen, but now and then it is im-
possible for the reader to make out with certainty what
insect Réaumur had in his mind. The concise characters
of genera and species, which he found so dry, have their
value after all.

From the external structure of a caterpillar Réaumur
proceeds to consider its internal organs. He had
Malpighi’s admirable description of the silkworm as a
guide, but the dissections figured in the Biblia Nature
were as yet inaccessible. No better elementary account
of the legs, head and spiracles of the caterpillar than
Réaumur’s could be set before a young student of the
present day. Now and then, of course, some faulty or
deficient explanation reminds us that he wrote nearly
two centuries ago. He knows, for example, nothing
about the chemical properties or mode of formation of
the substance (chitin), which forms so large a part of the
external skeleton of an insect.

The silk-glands, the spinneret, and the silk itself are
thoroughly investigated. A simple expedient is pointed
out which greatly facilitates the dissection of the glands.

256 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

Malpighi had found this a troublesome operation, but
Réaumur discovered that soaking the caterpillar in
alcohol coagulates the fluid silk, and makes it so firm
that the glands can be removed entire. Réaumur dis-
courses upon the physical properties of silk with great
animation, for here his technical knowledge of glues,
resins, and varnishes furnished him with many useful
notions. Silk, he says, is remarkable for three properties;
it sets instantly when exposed to the air; when once it
has set, it is not softened by water or any other natural
solvent ; lastly, it is not softened by heat. It is easy
to see how the value of silk, not only to the insect,
but to ourselves, is enhanced by these peculiarities.
Réaumur in his easy conversational way slips from one
topic to another, and gives many bits of curious informa-
tion that one does not look for in a chapter on cater-
pillars. Here is a single specimen. Many rocks, he
says, are soft when first exposed, and only harden as
they dry. When they have once become thoroughly
dry, water does not easily penetrate them again. Fresh-
wrought slates can be split into thin lamine, but when
the water has been allowed to escape they no longer
split with the same facility. A little later he treats us
to an entertaining discussion on the possibility of
manufacturing thin sheets, not composed of threads,
but with a perfectly smooth and bright surface, fit to
take paint or gilding. Some of the packets made out
of sheets of gelatine to hold sweetmeats perfectly realise
Réaumur’s notion.

He gives an interesting account of the alimentary
canal, the heart, and the air-tubes of a caterpillar.
Here he owes much. to Malpighi, though he has looked
into everything for himself. He thinks that air enters
into the body of an insect by the spiracles, but does not

REAUMUR 257

issue by the same openings. There are, he supposes, a
vast number of pores in the skin which allow the air to
escape. It is easy with an air-pump, or even with a
little strongly heated wax, to prove that the air taken
In for respiration is unable to issue at any other points
than the spiracles, and it is a little surprising that
Réaumur did not think of this or some other decisive
experiment.

The fourth memoir discusses change of skin in a
caterpillar. Réaumur was at first in doubt whether the
new hairs were enclosed within the old ones or not, and
devised the following simple experiment to settle the
point. A day or two before the change was due, he
cut a number of the long hairs close to the skin, choosing
the hairs just behind the head, the hairs of one side of
the body, or some other definite group. The caterpillars
so treated cast their skins exactly like any others, and
the new hairs were found to be entire. Immediately
after the skin is cast, Réaumur remarks, the body is
damp externally, showing that a liquid had existed
between the old and the new skin.?

Moths?

The external anatomy of moths occupies the fifth
memoir. The wings, eyes, antenne, and proboscis
receive special attention, and are illustrated by excellent
figures. To appreciate the importance of this memoir,
we must bear in mind that these things had never been
adequately investigated before. Malpighi had dismissed
the silk-moth briefly, though he investigated thoroughly
the reproductive organs in both sexes. Swammerdam’s
Biblia Nature (unpublished in 1734) gives a better

1A similar liquid facilitates the process of moulting in some reptiles.

2Vol. I, Mém. v.
R

258 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

account of the compound eye than Réaumur’s, but is not
nearly so full in respect to the wings, antenne, and
proboscis. Réaumur’s memoir is therefore the founda-
tion of nearly all our knowledge concerning the external
structure of a moth or butterfly. The scales of the
wings, overlapping like the slates of a roof, and in-
serted by their points into regular rows of holes, the
different kinds of Lepidopterous antennz, and the
construction of the sucking proboscis, are described with
great distinctness and spirit. So much has been done
since 1734 to elucidate these interesting structures that
it would be unfair to dwell upon the omissions inevitable
in a first study. Happily there is very little to correct
in these descriptions, and whatever Réaumur tells us
is easily remembered.

The Transformations of Moths

The second half of Volume I (Memoirs 8-14), is
chiefly occupied with the change of the caterpillar into a
chrysalis, and the change of the chrysalis into a moth.
These luminous descriptions are now reproduced with
cruel abridgement in all popular works which treat of
insect-transformations. It is a pity that so few readers
take the trouble to make themselves acquainted with
the original narrative, which is infinitely more interest-
ing than any of the abstracts. The only important
additions which naturalists have made to Réaumur’s
account of the transformations of Lepidoptera relate
to the internal changes, and these demand a minute
acquaintance with insect anatomy.

The first memoir of the second volume shows that the
duration of the different stages of an insect’s life may be
greatly affected by temperature. Thus a caterpillar
which is hatched out from the egg in July may pass the

REAUMUR 259

winter in the chrysalis form and only die as a spent
moth in the following June; whereas a second cater-
pillar, born in May, may reach the end of its life-history
in two or two and a half months. In the same way
winter-sown wheat and spring-sown wheat ripen at
the same time after growth-periods of very different
lengths. Réaumur found that pup kept in hothouses
in the depth of winter yielded moths long before other
pupze which were kept in a cool place. He also tried
the singular experiment of enclosing some pupe in
an egg-shaped glass flask, and giving them to a hen to
be sat with her own eggs. The time of year was June
and July, and the pupe set under the hen hatched out
in four days, while pupz of the same species kept in
the open air required fourteen. Then he tried to retard
development by keeping the pupe in a cellar. They
were kept alive without undergoing change twelve
months beyond the usual time, and might probably have
been retarded even longer by a lower temperature.
Réaumur goes on to quote examples of the suspended
animation of hibernating quadrupeds; of eggs of the
silk-worm, which in a cool place remained long un-
changed, but hatched out very rapidly when kept at the
temperature of the human body; and of seeds which
germinated after lying dormant for twenty years. He
speaks, with a contempt which has since proved to
be unjust, of the magazines of grain supposed to be laid
up against winter by the industrious ant. Instead of
enjoying the fruits of their labours in the dead season,
the ants, he says, are then crowded together, and unable
even to move. This is perfectly true of the ants of
France and England, but the agricultural ants of
warmer countries have been shown in modern days
to be no fable.

260 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

A Digression on Eggs

What he had seen of the retarded development of
insect-eggs put it into Réaumur’s head to try whether
the eggs of fowls might not be kept fresh and capable of
development long beyond the ordinary term. The fowl’s
egg spoils in consequence of putrefactive change; if
such change could be hindered it might be possible to
keep the egg fresh for an indefinite time.

What happens, he inquired, when an egg goes bad ?
In spite of egg-shell and shell-membrane, the egg loses
moisture, and as it loses moisture it spoils. In a fresh
egg the contents fill the whole space, but a continually
increasing cavity, which can be seen by holding the egg
up to the light, is found in all stale eggs; it is due to
the loss of water by evaporation. Bellini and Vallisnieri
had proved that the egg-shell is porous, for when the
egg was placed in the receiver of an air-pump and
surrounded by boiled water, the air rushed through the
pores in the form of small bubbles. In the last days of
hatching the chick utters a cry, which proves that its
lungs are then filled with air; this air must have
entered by the pores of the egg-shell. The countryman,
continues Réaumur, knows how to keep autumn-laid
eggs till winter, and then sell them as fresh eggs. He
packs them in barrels with close-pressed wood-ashes ;
the ashes choke the pores of the egg-shell, and render
evaporation slow. It occurred to Réaumur that varnish-
ing the eggs would be simpler and more certain.
Accordingly he took fresh-laid eggs in April, and
varnished them with shellac dissolved in alcohol; next
day he varnished them a second time. After two and a
half months, that is, early in July, he boiled and

1Vol. II, Mém. i. Issued as a separate work in 1749.

REAUMUR 261

opened the varnished eggs, and found that they had the
appearance and flavour of fresh eggs. Eggs which had
been kept in water for two or three days looked fresh,
but had already lost the natural flavour. Eggs which
had been boiled when fresh, and were merely warmed
up again before eating, were not well-tasted. Réaumur
kept varnished eggs for two years, and found that they
still appeared fresh, though their taste was not so
pleasant as that of fresh eggs; they resembled eggs
which had been. kept in water for a few days. He goes
on to explain that a particular way of dipping the eggs
in varnish is much less laborious than painting them
with a brush. He fixed a thread to one end by means
of sealing-wax, and was thus enabled to dip the egg and
afterwards hang it up to dry.?

Réaumur thought it possible that his varnished eggs
might be hatched and made to yield live chicks. He
knew that the varnish must be removed before the eggs
were set under the hen, and he could think of no good
way of doing this. It is not surprising that his varnished
eggs failed to produce live chicks. One such egg,
however, one of four which had been very carefully
cleaned from the varnish, did contain a chick with
feathers nearly ready to hatch out ; whether accidentally
or not, it proved to be a monstrous chick with four legs.

The effect of temperature upon the fowl’s egg is not,
Réaumur perceived, a simple or direct action. In air
which is cooled far below the temperature of the blood the
egg may remain long unchanged ; a rise of temperature
within certain limits promotes putrefaction. A tempera-
ture may be reached which starts the development of
the chick within the egg, and this hinders putrefaction ;

1 Dipping in boiling water, so as to coagulate a superficial film of albumen,
has been found beneficial.

262 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

in an unfertilised egg, however, putrefaction would go
on faster when the egg was moderately warmed.

Réaumur, we see, had attained a clear knowledge of
some of the elementary conditions of the problem ; it
was not possible for him to explain why putrefaction
should set in only between certain extremes of tem-
perature, and should become more energetic as blood-
heat is approached. The part which bacteria play in
putrefaction was not suspected as yet.

Pupe confined in a glass flask sometimes exude a
considerable amount of moisture, which condenses on
the sides of the flask. The exudation seemed to Réaumur
@ necessary accompaniment of the consolidation of watery
liquids into permanent tissues. Exudation is a sign of
life and growth ; more remotely a sign of approaching
death and decay. All growth, all activity, is a step
towards the wearing-out of the body. It occurred to
him that life might be indefinitely prolonged if the
exudation was checked. Accordingly he varnished the
body of a pupa, carefully leaving the spiracles unob-
structed, and found that the emergence of the moth was
retarded by some weeks. He went on to infer that in
man himself a similar prolongation of life was conceivable.
Cold, or a retardation of the insensible perspiration,
might possibly be employed to protract life indefinitely,
if such a result were truly desirable.

Réaumur carried his speculations to a length that was
not quite prudent, and thereby laid himself open to a
mischievous critic. Maupertuis, a friend and ally of
Réaumur’s, seized upon the notion of protracting life by
checking the insensible perspiration, and published his
thoughts in a volume of letters, together with many

> Bacon (Hist. of Life and Death, ch. xviii) had explained that there is in
the bodies of animals a vapour analogous to flame; if this is prevented from
escaping, by unction with oil, life will be prolonged.

REAUMUR 263

wild suggestions for the advancement of science and the
improvement of the human race. Voltaire, who had a
spite against Maupertuis, avenged himself in the Deatrabe
du Docteur Akakia, which holds up Maupertuis, and
indirectly Réaumur himself, to the ridicule of mankind.
The reader does not soon forget the resinous varnish
which is to prolong our days.

Leaf-Rollers and Leaf-Folders*

Réaumur has a pleasant chapter on the caterpillars
which roll up or double in two the leaves of plants.
Oak, the common fruit trees, many garden shrubs, and
some herbs, yield plenty of familiar examples. One
leaf-folder can nearly always be procured, at least in
summer, upon ivy, and another is plentiful on lilac in
June. Most leaf-rollers and leaf-folders are Tortrices,
Pyralids, or Tineids.

Réaumur gives a practical hint to those who desire to
watch with their own eyes the operations of such larve.
Having got a supply of rolled or doubled leaves, take
fresh branches of the same plant and stick the cut ends
into damp soil. Then turn out the caterpillars from
their retreats and lay them on the leaves; they will
make haste to conceal themselves in their accustomed
way, whatever it may be, and every detail of the work
can be observed. We cannot even name all the cater-
pillars described by Réaumur, and shall have to content
ourselves with his account of the tortrix of the oak,
which is common in early summer, sometimes so common
that the trees are completely stripped.

One chief purpose of leaf-rolling is no doubt protection
from birds and other enemies, but the same leaf which
provides shelter to the larva and the chrysalis also yields

Seeet ae Wim t

264 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

food, so long as food is required. The tortrix, screened
from view by the outer turns of its green case, is able to
devour the inner turns at its leisure.

These small larve are not strong enough to roll an
oak leaf without artifice ; moreover the leaf must not
only be rolled, but hindered from unrolling again. In
case of attack by a more powerful enemy, the larva
must have a ready way of escape not too obvious to the
pursuer. All these requirements are met by the instincts
of the leaf-rolling tortrix.

A leaf is generally chosen which has some tendency
to curl, and silken threads are spun across the bight.
The threads are not scattered at hazard, but collected
into short, stout bands, each of a hundred or more
separate filaments. While spinning, the larva swings
its head and the fore part of its body to and fro. When
the band is half finished the larva climbs upon it, and
then proceeds to spin the second half. Its weight, as
Réaumur explains, slightly deflects the first mass of
threads, and so tightens a little the folded edge of the
leaf; the new filaments secure it in its position. Hach
new band does something to increase the tension, and as
row after row is added, what was at first a slight con-
cavity becomes a close spiral, the turns being just so
far separated as to allow the caterpillar to move easily
between them. It is thus enabled to spin fresh bands,
to feed upon the inside of its tube, and to conceal itself
from an enemy. Now and then a main rib is gnawed
through in two or three places to make it more flexible.

When alarmed the larva throws its body into rapid

1 De Geer (Hist. Nat. des Insectes, Vol. I, p. 425 foll.) thinks that the weight
of the larva is too inconsiderable to produce much effect. He remarks that the
larva pulls the last-spun threads towards its body with its hooked feet. Every

new thread visibly draws the edge of the leaf inwards, and all the old threads
are lax.

REAUMUR 265

undulations which puzzle or even alarm an enemy. It
can move backwards and forwards with great agility, and
often escapes at one of the open ends of the tube. It is
always prepared to let itself down by a silken thread ;
when all is quiet again it climbs back to its leaf, coiling
the thread against its breast, and, last of all, eating up
the coil.*

Whenever the tube proves too narrow for the growing
larva a new one of greater diameter is begun, and the
leaf-roller moves to a fresh leaf as soon as may be
requisite. The last tube of all, in which the change to
the chrysalis takes place, is lined with silk, and the
overlapping edge is secured by a continuous silken hem.
The pupal stage lasts about three weeks, and then the
moth emerges from one end of the tube.

Some Peculiar Caterpillars?

Under the heading of caterpillars which take peculiar
attitudes or shapes, Réaumur describes the privet hawk-
moth, the puss-moth, the iron-prominent (Notodonta
dromedarius), the zigzag prominent (N. zic-zac), and the
hook-tip (Platypteryx lacertinaria). He notices the pro-
tective resemblance of the lappet moth, and tells us that
having shown this moth to several persons they all pro-
nounced it to be a bunch of dead leaves. In the same
memoir he describes the death’s head moth in all its
stages. The people of Brittany, he tells us, consider
this moth a precursor of epidemic diseases. One ominous
feature is the appearance of a skull upon the thorax ;
another is the cry which it utters, a strong and shrill
note, resembling the squeak of a mouse, but more
plaintive. We do not know, says Réaumur, any insects

1 Some additions have been made to this paragraph.
?Vol. II, Mém. vi.

266 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

which possess a true organ of voice; the sounds which
they emit are always due to vibration or friction. In
this case the wings take-no part in the production of the
sound, for when they are held the sound does not cease,
but becomes louder than before. It seems to proceed
from the head of the moth. Réaumur satisfied himself
that it was due to the rubbing of the palps against the
proboscis. When the proboscis was forcibly extended
with a pin, the sound ceased altogether; when only
one of the palps was allowed to act the sound was
weakened.

The Blow-fly

Réaumur describes with careful detail the external
features of the winged blow-fly. Among other things
he discusses the mechanism which enables the feet to
adhere even to a vertical glass surface, though without
remarking the exudation which is now known to be
essential. The eyes, simple and compound, the balancers
(halteres), and the membranes by which they are covered
in certain flies, the spiracles, and the air-reservoirs all
receive careful consideration. He gives an elaborate
account of the proboscis, and compares it with that of a
moth.1 He is not satisfied with an enumeration of the
parts; he must show them in action. His method of
study was to smear the inside of a glass vessel with
syrup, introduce some flies, and then watch them with a
lens. He saw the terminal disk applied to the sugared
surface in a hundred changing attitudes, expanded or
contracted, pressed flat, inclined, or hollowed into a
funnel ; he saw undulations travelling along the grooves,
liquid sucked up the tubular stem, and now and then an
outflow of saliva (made more evident by bubbles of air),
which served to dilute the syrup.

1Vol. IV, Mem. v.

REAUMUR 267

Then we get a full description of the maggot,! includ-
ing such minute details as the anterior spiracles, which
are easily overlooked by an observer who has no means
of enlargement beyond a simple lens. He shows how
the pupa forms within the larval skin and is well aware
that the head and other appendages of the future fly are
telescoped into the body, from which they can be caused
to protrude by gentle pressure. A student who intends
to study all the details of the transformation would be
well advised to verify Réaumur’s account as a pre-
liminary. He calls attention (Vol. IV, Mém. vii, viii)
to the peculiar method of pupation which is found in
the blow-fly. At first sight the pupa of such a fly seems
to resemble a Lepidopterous chrysalis, but it differs
notably from all ordinary insect-pupze in one respect.
Réaumur tells us that when the maggot is full-fed, it
buries itself in the earth, if it can, and then contracts its
body until it assumes the figure of an elongate egg.
The larval skin is not cast, as in the pupation of a
caterpillar ; it persists as an outer defence, which we
shall in this abstract call the shell. Though it was soft
and flexible when it served as the skin of the maggot, it
now turns dry and firm; its colour changes from white
to red, and ultimately to a deep maroon. The maggot
imprisoned within the shell is incapable of movement,
its head is withdrawn into the thorax, and the hooks, by
which it used to tear its food, are shed. Réaumur found
that when the shell was opened, a new and delicate skin,
the proper pupal skin, was found within it. Within this
inner skin he naturally expected to find a pupa, but in
a maggot which had just pupated he could discover

nothing but a milky pulp.? Five or six days later he
1Vol. IV, Mém. iii.
2It has been ascertained since Réaumur’s time that the larval tissues are
to a great extent consumed by phagocytes shortly before and after pupation,

268 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

found, on opening the shell, a white pupa, in which the
parts of the fly could be distinctly recognised. By a
brief immersion in boiling water the pupa, in its later
stages at least, could be readily extracted without injury,
and he was thus able to study its growth with facility.
Two or three days after the maggot became motionless
three pairs of short legs appeared on its thorax; next
day the wings could be distinguished, while the legs had
apparently grown longer; a little later the proboscis
became visible, and so on. Réaumur next discovered
that the new organs begin to form some time before
they appear externally, for they are at first telescoped
into the body in such a way that only their extremities
are free. By gentle pressure he succeeded in causing
them to protrude from the deep infoldings in which
they were at first concealed. ‘In fact,” says he, “I
was able myself to complete the development of the
pupa, effecting in a moment a transformation which
ought to have occupied several days.” He made the
acute suggestion that the protrusion may be accom-
plished in the living insect by blood-pressure, and this
suggestion has now been confirmed by actual observation.

Réaumur next explains how the fly makes its escape
from the shell (hardened larval skin). At the head-end
is a horizontal cleft, which divides the thoracic and first
abdominal segments of the larval skin into dorsal and
ventral halves ; this cleft is a line of weakness, prepared
in advance to facilitate the emergence of the fly. By
pressing a late pupa between the finger and thumb the
cleft can be made to gape; the dorsal and ventral flaps
part, and may fall off, for they are easily detached along

and that the milky pulp which Réaumur observed is largely made up of gorged
phagocytes. Something of the same kind has been observed in many other
insects, but it is a peculiarity of Muscid larve that they are almost entirely
dissolved in this way.

REAUMUR 269

the transverse lines where the segments meet. Réaumur
took advantage of this arrangement whenever he had
occasion to extract a pupa from its shell. It still re-
mained to explain how the fly is enabled to open the shell
from within. Réaumur made the remarkable discovery
that the head of the fly is at this time capable of great
and rapid dilatation. All the fore part between the
compound eyes and the antenne can be distended so as
to double the size of the head. The fly, says Réaumur,
when it is ready to emerge, dilates its head with ar,
and thus exerts a pressure sufficient to burst open the
shell. This statement contains the only mistake that I
have discovered in Réaumur’s account of the trans-
formation of the blow-fly; the head is not distended
with air, but with blood. Then the fly wriggles out,
relying at first upon its body-segments, but employing
its legs as soon as they become free. The delicate pupal
skin, which was closely fitted to every part of the
surface of the fly, is left behind in the empty shell,
and with it the linings of the air-tubes, which were
drawn out through the spiracles. The fresh-emerged
fly is soft and pale-coloured, and its wings are crumpled.
It looks too big for the shell in which it was imprisoned,
and is really so, for it enlarges after its escape in a
surprising way. Réaumur discovered that the enlarge-
ment is simply due to inflation by air, and by the prick
of a pin he was able to reduce the fly to its former size.
In the course of a few hours the skin darkens and turns
hard, the wings expand, and the insect becomes capable
of flight.
Aphids *
Réaumur was able to make important contributions

to that investigation of the aphids, which Leeuwenhoek
1Vol. III, Mém. ix.

270 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

had started, and which had attracted the notice of
several other naturalists during the forty years’ interval
between the Continuatio Arcanorum and the Histovre
des Pucerons. He showed that both the winged and
the wingless aphids may be viviparous ; Leeuwenhoek
had concluded too hastily that the wingless forms are
immature insects, destined afterwards to acquire wings.
Réaumur was aware that the unfertilised females can
bear young, and he endeavoured to rear successive
generations of viviparous aphids, but was accidentally
hindered. Leeuwenhoek had concluded from his own
observations that ants devour aphids, and are the great
natural check upon their inordinate increase ; Réaumur,
however, confirmed and corrected the view which Goedart
had put forth long before and which Frisch had defended ;
he showed that when ants seek out aphids, it is not
usually in order to prey upon them, but to drink their
sugary exudation. He found small red ants, probably
Formica rufa, dwelling underground in company with
grey aphids. All honeydew, Réaumur maintained, is
the product of aphids, a statement which has been con-
firmed by later observers. He showed that a fluid is
exuded from the tubes which in most aphids stand up
from the hinder part of the abdomen, but he could give
no account of the use of the fluid.

Réaumur’s Aphis-studies enabled him to suggest to
his young friend, Charles Bonnet, the inquiry which
has immortalised his name, and in the last volume of
the Histoire des Insectes* Réaumur had the satisfaction
of noticing Bonnet’s discoveries with warm praise.

1 Bonnet (Traité d’Insectologie) was the first to observe that aphids defend
themselves by directing the extremity of the abdomen (which bears the
tubules) towards an enemy.

2Vol. VI, pp. 523-568.

REAUMUR 271

The Hive-Bee

The last part of Volume V is devoted to bees, and
Réaumur begins with a full account of the hive-bee, the
most interesting of all insects.

Swammerdam, as we have seen (p. 185), had proved
by anatomical examination that the so-called “king of
the bees” was really a queen, the only functional female,
as a rule, in the hive. This discovery was the most
considerable addition made to the knowledge of the
honey-bee since ancient times. It was, however, far
from being the only one which we owe to Swammerdam,
who had worked out in rich detail the general anatomy
and the life-history. Réaumur now comes in, simul-
taneously with the long-delayed publication of the
Biblia Nature, to enlarge and correct the studies of
his predecessor. Far inferior to Swammerdam in ana-
tomical knowledge, he enjoyed the advantage of coming
after him, and as an observer of the living animal he
surpassed not only Swammerdam, but, it is hardly too
much to say, all other naturalists who have occupied
themselves with insects. After the Histoire des Insectes
no great step was taken towards the elucidation of the
economy of the hive until Schirach in 1771 proved that
the workers are imperfect females. This brings us in
sight of the researches of Huber.

Réaumur was indefatigable in devising experiments
to ascertain how bees behave in various contingencies.
He made much use of glass hives, so narrow that bees
shut up in them could never be very far from one or
other of the glass faces. The idea of glass hives was
not new. Réaumur quotes Pliny to show that sheets
of horn had been used in ancient times to facilitate
observation of the work of the bees. Cassini, the first

272 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

and greatest astronomer of that illustrious name, had
kept glass hives in the garden of the observatory at
Paris, and these had been used by his nephew Maraldi
for observations on the construction of the honeycomb.
Réaumur’s hives and the work done with their help
speedily superseded all Maraldi’s results.

The account of the external features of the honey-bee
in the Histoire des Insectes is an improvement even
upon that of Swammerdam, and the description of the
proboscis there given has never been mended except in
minor details. One mistake of his predecessor Réaumur
was careful to correct. Swammerdam had represented
the so-called tongue, which forms the tip of the pro-
boscis, as a tubular organ, which sucks up the honey
like a pump. Réaumur showed that it is not a complete
tube, but rather an elongate gutter. The cavity along
which the honey flows lies between the tongue and the
ensheathing blades of the maxillee.

When Réaumur comes to discuss the source from
which bees get their honey, he gives the credit of the
discovery of the nectaries of flowers to “M. Linéus.”
Linneus had recently visited Paris, and made himself
known to the Jussieus, from whom Réaumur may have
learned something about him. The nectaries of flowers
are mentioned in his Linneus’ Fundamenta Botanica
(1736) (pp. 10, 13), but were described long before his
day by Malpighi (see p. 156).

Many particulars are added to Swammerdam’s account
of the pollen-collecting of the workers. The collecting
hairs are figured; the comb on the hind leg and the
bread-basket are well explained. In studying the move-
ments of the legs in a bee which was combing out the
pollen, Réaumur found that the bee worked her legs too
rapidly for the convenience of the observer; he got

REAUMUR 273

over the difficulty by watching bees that were partially
benumbed by the cold of a spring morning. He failed
to note the antenna-cleaning comb on the fore tibia, or
the spike on the mid leg.

Maraldi had supposed that the bees found their wax
ready-made on leaves and flowers. Swammerdam, as
we have seen, thought that wax is, in some fashion or
other, elaborated by the bees out of the bee-bread, which
he did not recognise as a mass of pollen. By the time
of Réaumur the origin of the bee-bread presented little
difficulty. The use of pollen in the fertilisation of
flowers was now generally known, and Geoffroy had de-
scribed the pollen-grains of a number of common flowers.
Réaumur still held the old belief of Swammerdam, that
bee-bread is the raw material from which wax is made.

In ancient times Pappus had illustrated the advan-
tage of the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb, by
proving that of all elongate regular solids, which could
be employed in the construction of honey-cells, the
hexagonal prism is the most economical of material.
Réaumur proposed to the geometer Keenig to determine
what angles are most suitable for the rhombic plates
which form the pyramidal ends of the cells, and Keenig’s
reply, agreeing exactly with Maraldi’s measurement of
the angles in an actual honeycomb, became universally
celebrated. This incredibly exact correspondence of
bee-instinct with mathematical theory has however since
been broken down; the typical form of the cell is rarely,
if ever, realised.

Réaumur did not discover where or how wax is
formed; he thought that the bees regurgitate it from
their mouths as a soft paste. He gives useful informa-
tion about propolis and its use in stopping chinks.

The old question, how the eggs of the queen are

s

274 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

fertilised was rediscussed by Réaumur, who got nearer to
the truth than any of his predecessors or contemporaries.
Maraldi had maintained the ancient opinion that the
eggs of the queen are fertilised after being laid, like the
egos of fishes. Swammerdam had propounded the theory
of an aura seminalis (see p. 191). Réaumur shut up
together a queen and a drone, and got indications that
the queen is impregnated like other insects. It amused
him to remark that the queen made all the advances.
The curious history of the wedding-flight was first cleared
up by Huber.

Réaumur found out methods of transferring all the
bees of a swarm to a new hive, or of dividing them into
companies. He discovered that they can be revived
after long immersion in water, and employed this ex-
pedient to search a whole swarm, bee by bee. In this
way: he proved that a hive ordinarily contains but a
single queen, and no drones except for a few weeks in
the year. He gives a brief but accurate account of the
swarming of bees, shows that wholesale destruction at
the approach of winter is needless, and recommends the
occasional transport of the hives into a flowery country
—a practice for which he is able to quote examples of
great antiquity.

At this point the inquiry into the structure, life-
history and economy of the hive-bee passes out of our
notice. Since Réaumur it has been fruitfully carried on
by many naturalists, among whom the Hubers, father
and son, Schirach and Dzierzon are pre-eminent.

Wild Bees}

Réaumur's accounts of the moss-carding bee and the
leaf-cutting bee have been often quoted in popular
1Vol. VI, Mém. i-v.

REAUMUR 275

books. Their history as related in Kirby and Spence
is taken almost wholly from Réaumur.

Animals which Increase by Budding?

Biological discoveries of the highest interest not
relating to insects (in the modern sense), nor to
Réaumur’s own work, occupy the concluding pages of
his last preface. Trembley had lately made known the
existence of an animal (Hydra), which increased by
budding, and when cut in two, gave rise to two
new animals. Trembley’s discovery, communicated to
Réaumur in 1740, was shortly afterwards set forth by
Trembley himself in his classical Mémoires pour servir
a Uhistoire dun genre de Polypes d’eau douce (1744).
The name Polype, since so extensively employed, was
suggested by Réaumur.

In this same preface Réaumur was able to give a
preliminary notice of Bonnet’s discovery of the multi-
plication of a fresh-water worm by artificial division.
Bonnet’s fuller account appeared three years later (1745)
in his Traaté d'Insectologie.?

The discoveries of Trembley and Bonnet were followed
by a number of experiments on the multiplication of
animals of low grade by artificial fission. Réaumur
found that planarians (‘‘sangsues limaces ”), Stylaria, and
earthworms could be increased in this way. Guettard
and Bernard de Jussieu experimented on starfishes, and
made it clear that they could at least reproduce lost
rays. Trembley investigated a fresh-water polyzoan
which he called the polype @ pannache (Lophopus),
and showed that it produced new individuals by
budding.

At this time a question was reopened which had been

1Vol. VI, preface. 2 Infra, p. 284.

276 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

long under discussion, viz., whether corals and sea-
anemones are animals or plants. Réaumur had hitherto
accepted and enforced the teaching of Count Marsigli,
who had described the polyps of corals as their flowers.
Peyssonel, a native of Marseilles, who had diligently
studied the corals of the Mediterranean, tried in vain to
get a hearing for more sensible views. He had seen
the polyps extend their tentacles, open and close their
mouths; had ascertained that they were not, like
flowers, restricted to a particular season, but were
always to be found on living coral, and had ren-
dered it highly probable that they had the chemical
composition of animals, one proof being that when they
putrefied they gave out the odour of decomposing
animals. Réaumur, who had been invited to bring
Peyssonel’s paper before the Academy of Sciences, did
so with the greatest scepticism, did not even name his
correspondent (for fear, as he afterwards explained, of
bringing ridicule upon him), and immediately laid before
the Academy a paper of his own, in which he supported
Marsigli’s erroneous interpretation of the corals.
Trembley’s discoveries caused Bernard de Jussieu to
examine closely examples of different kinds of zoophytes
(Aleyonium, Tubipora, Flustra, Cellepora), all of which
he showed to be unquestionably compound animals.
Réaumur was now converted. He accepted the con-
clusions of Trembley and Bernard de Jussieu, apologised
for his incredulous reception of Peyssonel’s observations,
and employed all his gifts of exposition to spread the
belief in the animal nature of the corals and zoophytes.
Peyssonel, who received hard treatment all through,
had gone on a forlorn errand to Guadeloupe as physi-
cian-botanist to His Most Christian Majesty. When
Réaumur withdrew his opposition, Peyssonel made a

REAUMUR 277

last effort to obtain recognition; he wrote from his
place of banishment a lengthy treatise on corals, which
he addressed to the Royal Society of London. From
the abstract published in 1752 it would appear that this
treatise contained little new matter. The unfavourable
opinion of one Dr. Parsons, though containing no
experiments or observations, was held to be decisive,
and Peyssonel’s treatise was never published. The clear
evidence brought forward by John Ellis was required to
convince naturalists of the soundness of the views which
Peyssonel and Bernard de Jussieu had advocated.

These extracts and notes from Réaumur must now
come to an end. It will be readily understood that
they are mere chance samples of the rich mass of
observations which fills the Hustovre des Insectes. They
cannot but fail in giving any just impression of that
clear and sprightly style by which Réaumur fixes
our attention upon the details of a thousand natural
contrivances.

DE GEER’S HISTORY OF INSECTS.

Réaumur’s History of Insects was followed up by the
seven volumes of De Geer,! which adopt the methods
and even the form of their model as closely as a work
based on independent observations could do. De Geer
(1720-1778) came of a very notable and public-spirited
Dutch family, which had been long settled in Sweden,
and had grown wealthy by the possession of iron mines
and furnaces. He was educated in Holland, and after-
wards attended the lectures of Linnzeus at Upsala. He
was only sixteen when he made his first observations on
the water-spider, and his first paper was read when he

1 Mémoires pour servir & Vhistoire des Insectes. J vols. 4to. Stockholm:
1752-1778.

278 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

was no more than twenty ; it contains the first published
account of the water Podura and other spring-tails.
This' excellent beginning was followed by more studies
of the same kind, and after some years’ labour Réaumur
and Muschenbroek advised him to prepare a methodical
account of his discoveries. He took Réaumur’s Histoire
des Insectes as his model, and wrote in French, though
he was aware that his style was “pas trop Frangais.”
Réaumur assured him that due allowance would be
made for a naturalist who wrote in a foreign language,
but little allowance was called for. The numerous plates
were engraved from the author’s drawings. Buffon’s
first three volumes had lately appeared, in which
Réaumur was reproached for his blind admiration of the
works of nature, and especially of insect contrivances.
“Qn admire toujours d’autant plus, qu’on observe
davantage et qu’on raisonne moins.” De Geer retorted
by explaining that he had made a point of telling what
he had seen “sans trop de raisonnemens.” His first
volume found so few purchasers that de Geer in a fit
of disgust burned a large part of the edition; this
volume has been scarce ever since. Happily for us
his good temper soon returned; he lived long enough
and worked hard enough to deal with all the orders
of insects. His classification of insects by wings and
mouth-parts was better than any that had previously
appeared, and resembles in many respects that which we
still employ.

TREMBLEY 279

ABRAHAM TREMBLEY
1700-1784

Mémoires pour servir 4 Vhistoire d’un genre de Polypes d’eau douce, a bras
en forme de cornes. 4to. Leyden. 1744.

The Polypes d’eau douce is a book of 324 pages,
illustrated by thirteen plates and four vignettes. It is
printed in the handsome style of Réaumur’s Histoire
des Insectes.

The author was a Genevese, related to Charles Bonnet.
When he wrote the book he was tutor to the two boys
of the Hon. William Bentinck, English resident at the
Hague. He afterwards followed Bentinck to London,
and served as travelling tutor to the young duke of
Richmond. In 1757 he returned to Geneva, and became
a member of the Council, which led him to pay atten-
tion among other things to economic entomology.

The four vignettes which enliven the book show
Bentinck’s country-house (Sorgvliet, a mile from the
Hague), the artificial lakes in which Trembley was
accustomed to fish for polyps, and the schoolroom of
the mansion. Trembley and his pupils are brought into
each picture.

At the time of his first arrival at Sorgvliet (summer
of 1740) Trembley happened to collect some water-
plants, which he put into a glass vessel and set in a
window. Being occupied with aquatic insects, he paid
little attention to a small green stalk, barely visible to
the unaided eye, which he found attached to one of the
plants, until the slow movement of its thread-like
tentacles attracted his notice. When he gently shook
the vessel, the stalk and tentacles contracted, but soon
extended themselves again. Was this new object a

280 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

plant or an animal? Its form and colour were those
of a plant, and sensitive plants were known, which droop
when touched or shaken. But when he found that the
supposed plant could move from place to place, he was
inclined to change his first opinion. It then occurred
to him to cut the stalk in two, and see whether the
halves would live when separated; if they did, the
natural inference would be that it was a plant. The
halves gave at first no signs of life beyond movements
of contraction or expansion, but on the ninth day small
prominences were found to have formed on the cut end
of the basal half; these gradually grew into new ten-
tacles. Trembley had now two complete organisms in
place of one; each was able to extend or contract its
body, and to move about.

Hydra was therefore capable of increase by artificial
fission; in other words, it could be multiplied by
cuttings, like a plant. Leeuwenhoek! had proved in
1702 that Hydra also buds spontaneously, a fact which
Trembley abundantly confirmed. These points of re-
semblance between Hydra and a plant were however
balanced by the discovery that Hydra fed upon small
aquatic animals, capturing and devouring live water-
fleas (Daphnia) with avidity. No wonder that Trembley
wavered in opinion, regarding this puzzling object now
as a plant, then as an animal, and again as neither
plant nor animal, but something intermediate. When
the water was warm and “ pucerons” (Daphnia) abun-
dant, the polyps formed colonies of great size, each
consisting of countless attached animals.

Trembley found the ovary of the Hydra, and observed
the liberation of the ovum. He suspected that a small
polyp which afterwards appeared had proceeded from

1 Supra, p. 216.

TREMBLEY 281

the ovum, but the proof was not complete, as other
polyps had been kept in the same vessel. Roesel a few
years later figured the ovary and the ripe ovum within
it, but was not fortunate enough to see polyps emerge
from the ova; he thought, quite truly, that the young
polyps which are plentiful in spring originate in this
way, but was too cautious to affirm what he could not
prove.?

Live specimens were sent to Réaumur, who had no
hesitation in placing them among animals, and calling
them polyps, the old Greek name for cuttle-fishes.
Linnzeus afterwards proposed the generic name of Hydra,
suggested by the fabulous monster which sprouted out
new heads, as fast as the old ones were cut off.

In his memoir Trembley describes three species, the
green, the common brown, and the long-armed brown
Hydra. He says that, besides preying upon Daphnia,
his Hydras devoured Nais, Cypris, insect-larve and
pupz, and even very small fishes. Fishes and also the
whirligig-beetle rejected the Hydra after once biting it ;
the irritating thread-cells were of course unknown as
yet. Trembley mentions the power which the polyp
possesses of fixing its body by means of its tentacles,
and shows that it can travel looping-fashion, attaching
the fore and hind ends alternately; he was not aware
that it can also move slowly by means of the foot alone.
He describes the suspension from the surface-film, and
shows that a single tentacle can thus hold up the body.
A drop of water let fall upon a Hydra floating in this
way sends it to the bottom at once. There is also
mention made of the infusorian parasite (Trichodina),
which runs about on the Hydra.

1 Insecten-Belustigungen, Theil III, pp. 500, 513-4, pl. 83, figs. 1, 2;
89, fig. 7.

282 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

Trembley’s worst mistake was that he supposed the
base of the polyp to be perforated. When we recollect
that he worked with a simple lens, and lacked all the
appliances which histological experience has now devised,
it is surprising that he should have ascertained that the
body-wall is composed of two layers, the colouring
matter being confined to the inner one; that both
layers extend into the hollow tentacles; and that the
eavity of a bud is continuous with the cavity of the
parent polyp.

Trembley carefully abstains from the guessing which
so often spoils the work of early discoverers. “Je ne
m’arréterai point,’ he says, “a expliquer par quel
mécanisme le corps des polypes s’étend et se contracte.
Je risquerais de ne donner que des conjectures.” He
would no doubt have gone wrong if he had offered an
explanation.

His manipulative skill is astonishing. There are very
few who could lay open a Hydra in this way: “Je mets
un polype sur ma main, et je le fais contracter le plus
qu il est possible ; aprés quoi jintroduis dans sa bouche
une pointe de ciseaux tres fins, et je la fais sortir par le
bout postérieur. Je ferme ensuite les ciseaux, c’est-a-
dire, je coupe un cdté de la peau du polype suivant
toute sa longueur, j’ouvre d’un bout a l’autre le canal
quelle forme, et en abaissant aprés cela de cdté et
d’autre cette peau que j’ai séparée, je découvre la super-
ficie intérieure de la peau du polype, les parois de son
estomac.” Trembley cut Hydras into very minute
pieces, which completed themselves into normal polyps ;
he divided them longitudinally as well as transversely,
and actually succeeded in cutting a polyp into four
strips, each of which yielded a perfect animal. By
cutting and reuniting he produced extraordinary mon-

TREMBLEY 283

sters, seven-headed hydras, double hydras, in which one
body enclosed another, &. He found it possible to
jom up the fragments of different individuals. His
turning of a polyp inside out was a still more wonderful
feat. The base was pushed inwards until it emerged
through the mouth, a bristle being the only instrument
employed. The polyp had a great inclination to turn
itself back again, which Trembley sometimes prevented
by spitting it on a bristle. The most extraordinary
feature of the story is that polyps thus treated could
live, feed and bud out new individuals. For the truth
of his statement he appeals to the witnesses who saw
it done, to Allamand, professor of natural history at
Leyden, who successfully repeated the operation, and
indirectly to Lyonet, who made the drawings. How a
polyp so treated could digest its food is an unsolved
mystery, and modern zoologists find it hard to believe
that there is not some mistake in the account.

Baer has remarked that Trembley’s discovery appre-
ciably modified the teaching of physiology by showing
that an animal without head, nerves, sense-organs,
muscles, or blood may perceive, feed, grow and move
about.

The Polype d'eau douce contains good figures of
another compound animal, the Polyzoan Lophopus,
which Trembley calls the “ polype @ pannache.”

Eight of the thirteen plates were engraved by Lyonet,
who was already a keen and experienced naturalist,
living at the Hague, and warmly interested in Trembley’s
work. Though a skilful draughtsman, Lyonet had never
attempted to engrave, nor had he even seen how engrav-
ing isdone. A Dutch engraver, Wandelaar, being struck
by the beauty of his drawings, persuaded him to try

1 Reden, Vol. I, pp. 109, 154.

284 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

what he could do on copper. His first figure, that of a
dragon-fly, was successful ; he went on to engrave three
moths, and then without further apprenticeship executed
the charming plates of the Polype d’eau douce.

CHARLES BONNET
1720-1793

Traité d’Insectologie, ou Observations sur les Pucerons. Par M. Charles
Bonnet, de la Société Royale de Londres, &. A second part, published at
the same time, contains Observations sur quelques espéces de vers d’eau
douce, qui coupés par morceaux, deviennent autant d’animaux complets.
8vo. Paris, 1745.

About the year 1745 all well-read naturalists, and
many people who were not naturalists at all, were
strangely excited about the pucerons or aphids. It
became known that a young man named Bonnet had
just proved that the aphids produced new generations
without fertilisation, and this singular exception to the
ordinary course of nature created almost as great a stir
as the seminal animalcules of Leeuwenhoek or the polyps
of Trembley. The story of the aphids occupies the first
volume of the Traité d’Insectologie. Though spaced so
widely as to occupy 228 pages, it is not longer than many
a review article, and may easily be read through in an
evening. It is clear and interesting, devoid of techni-
calities, and suited in all ways to readers who are
intelligent without being learned.

A short account of Leeuwenhoek’s work on the aphids
has already been given (supra, p. 206). Several other
naturalists had engaged in the further study of these
insects, so common and yet so interesting. Among
them was Hyacinthe Cestone (1637-1718), who com-
municated his observations to Vallisnieri, by whom they

BONNET 285

were published. Then came the important memoir by
Réaumur, published in the third volume of his Histovre
des Insectes (supra, p. 269). Leeuwenhoek and Cestone
had found no male aphids, and had got no proof that
the females were ever fertilised. Neither of them firmly
established the fact, but they offered an explanation,
which was that aphids were self-fertilised—a daring
speculation, seeing that not a single case of a self-
fertilised animal could be quoted! Cestone had thought
that the scale-insects too were self-fertilised, but Réaumur
was able to refute him by discovering the male insect.
Réaumur now thought of rendering the fertilisation of
an aphid by another individual impossible ; he meant to
isolate it from birth, and see whether it would still be
able to propagate. Owing to unlucky accidents, none
of the aphids which he thus isolated came to maturity,
but he did not lose sight of the inquiry, and when
Bonnet begged him to suggest a subject for investiga-
tion, Réaumur proposed this experiment as a promising
one.

Bonnet came of a French Protestant family, which
had been driven by religious persecution to take refuge
in Switzerland. He was brought up to the law, but
found time for other studies, and among the rest for
natural history. Réaumur’s Histovre des Insectes early
fixed his attention, and he was only twenty years old
when he undertook the aphis-experiment. The result
was communicated to Réaumur, and through him to the
Académie des Sciences, which begged him to repeat and
extend his researches. He did so, and followed up his
aphis-work by studying another case of abnormal repro-
duction, the multiplication of worms by section. A
weakness of the eyes hindered him from attempting
further work in natural history. Henceforth he gave

286 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

his chief thoughts to philosophy, and wrote much that
was once highly esteemed, though it has failed to endure.
Bonnet and his wife (a daughter of the celebrated De la
Rive family), being childless and wealthy, adopted a
nephew of Madame Bonnet, who made for himself a
great name as a botanist, a geologist and an explorer of
Mont Blanc. This was Horace Benedict de Saussure
(1740-1799).

Experiments on Aphids

To the Traité d’Insectologie is prefixed a short intro-
duction, for which Réaumur’s Histoire des Insectes
furnishes all the facts, and all the figures of insects.
Bonnet then proceeds to explain the experiment pro-
posed to him by Réaumur, and the measures taken to
carry it out. He filled a flower-pot with earth, and
plunged into it a phial of water, intended to supply
the food-plant. A new-born aphis, whose birth had
been observed, was placed on the plant, and all was
covered up by a bell-jar, which was pressed into
the earth, so as to exclude other insects. An aphis
found upon the spindle-tree was selected for the first
trial, which began on May 20, 1740. Bonnet kept
an exact diary of his observations, which were made
hourly or oftener during the day; a good lens was
continually employed. The aphis changed its skin
four times, and came to maturity on June 1, when the
first young one was born. By June 21 the unfertilised
female had produced 95 aphids, all born alive. She
was then accidentally lost, having by this time assumed
a peculiar shape (flattish, narrowed in front and rounded
behind), which Geoffroy had mistaken for the male
aphis, but which Réaumur had shown to indicate an
exhausted female. Next year the experiment was re-

BONNET 287

peated. Two new-born aphids were tried, one of which
produced 90, the other 49 young, but a fever prevented
Bonnet from carrying the trial further.

Trembley, who was at this time living with the
Bentinck family at the Hague, corresponded with
Bonnet about the aphis-experiments, and suggested that
one act of fertilisation might conceivably suffice for
several generations. In order to investigate the matter
to the very bottom, he thought it desirable to isolate
individuals of each successive generation until either
males appeared or the reproductive powers became
exhausted. Bonnet carried out Trembley’s suggestion,
and reared in succession five generations of the aphis of
the elder, all without the participation of a male insect.
At last the bark of the elder grew too hard to be
penetrated by the beaks of the young aphids, and
further propagation became impossible.

Bonnet also observed two species of the genus
Lachnus, aphids which are common on the oak. They
are remarkable for their large size, 6 mm. (fin.); one of
them had a beak longer than the whole body. Both
the winged and the wingless individuals reproduced
viviparously so long as the season was mild, no act
of fertilisation being observed. At the approach of
winter, however, small, active, winged males appeared ;
the females were fertilised and laid eggs. These egos
were kept, but they produced no young, possibly because
they were not kept till spring. Trembley soon wrote
from the Hague that Lyonet, “qui voit tout,” had found
fertile eggs of Lachnus on the oak in April. Bonnet
was now able to show that the aphids reproduce
viviparously so long as food is plentiful, but that when
severe conditions prevail, viviparous reproduction ceases,
and eggs are laid, which outlast the winter; all such

288 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

eggs are fertilised.1_ Bazin of Strassburg, Trembley and
Lyonet were all invited by Réaumur to repeat Bonnet’s
experiments, and all three got confirmatory results,
as did Réaumur himself, though his trials were less
complete. Long afterwards it became known that as
early as 1701 Albrecht of Hildesheim had observed
reproduction in an unfertilised moth.? He had picked a
brown pupa from a currant-bush, and placed it in a glass
vessel. A yellowish-white moth emerged, which was
left all winter without attention. In the following
April Albrecht was astonished to find that the eggs
of this moth had hatched, and produced a number of
small black caterpillars.

The Multiplication of Worms by Section

In Part II of the Tracté dInsectologie Bonnet tells
how he searched without success for the freshwater
polyp according to the indications furnished by Trembley.
A long aquatic worm was however found, and upon this
the experiment of section into two (suggested by
Trembley’s work on Hydra) was tried ; each piece became
a complete worm. In the end Bonnet succeeded in
cutting a worm into twenty-six parts, most of which
yielded complete individuals. He believed that he
had experimented on six different kinds of worms;
Nais does not appear to have been one, in spite of
statements to the contrary, which are frequent in
text-books. Bonnet takes to himself the credit of
these observations, but it is plain that it was not he
but Lyonet who first showed that there are worms

1See also Trembley, Polype d’eau douce, preface, p. xi, which shows that
Lyonet had anticipated some of Bonnet’s conclusions.

The case is reported by Siebold in his Wahre Parthenogenesis, p. 16
(1856).

BONNET 289

which, when cut up, form as many animals as there
were pieces.!

Bonnet remarked that his worm (Lumbriculus)
occasionally budded out a second head; if he had
happened to study Nais instead (as is often alleged), it
is probable that he would have observed the frequent
formation of a zone of division, and the spontaneous
segmentation of the worm into two complete individuals.
Both artificial and spontaneous fission were observed in
Nais by Roesel? a few years later.

Bonnet’s once-celebrated theory of embottement may
be sufficiently discussed in a few words, since it has long
ceased to occupy the thoughts of biologists. The facts
on which it rested were these :—insect-larvee and pupze
often contain eggs; aphids can reproduce for many
successive generations without fertilisation; Malpighi
had found a rudimentary chick in an egg which had
never been sat by a hen (supra, p. 159). From these
facts Bonnet drew very wide conclusions. All female
animals, he said, whether fertilised or not, contain
embryos, which are capable of development, and enlarge
simply by absorption from the surrounding tissues. The
embryo is “ preformed,” and exists before the body by
which it ultimately becomes enclosed. It was easy to
trace in imagination the invisible 'rudiment to the egg,
to the parent, to the grandparent, and so on; Bonnet

1The preface to Réaumur’s sixth volume (p. lvi), published three years
before the Traité d’Insectologie, makes this clear. We have also the testimony
of Trembley :—‘‘M. Lyonet, qui est le premier qui ait coupé des vers, et qui
ait vu chaque partie devenir un ver parfait, &c.” (Polype d’eau douce, p. 223).
It is not easy after this to understand Bonnet’s account of the matter, nor his
assurance that he had no direct knowledge of Lyonet’s experiments when the
Traité was sent to the press (Preface to Traité d’Insectologie, Vol. II): No
doubt Lyonet had Bonnet in mind when he complained of those who had
anticipated him by publishing the results for which he had laboured (Preface
to Traité Anat. de la Chenille, &.).

2 Insecten-Belustigungen, Vol. III, pp. 567-584 ; pl. 92-3.
T

290 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

supposed that the process was started at the Creation,
and has been in operation ever since ; there is really no
such thing as generation, but only the expansion of
germs which are as old as the world." Swammerdam
(supra, p. 183) had already published a speculation
which has much in common with Bonnet’s.

The formation of hybrid animals and plants, and
the resemblance of the child to the father, show that the
development of an embryo may be largely affected by
events immediately preceding, but awkward facts like
these might perhaps be got over by the ingenuity of
a Bonnet. The process of embryo-formation is however
absolutely different from that which he pictured to
himself. Even in 1759 Wolff saw enough of this process
to satisfy himself that the embryo is new-formed in
each generation, and his conclusion is now reinforced by
the far more complete and rigorous demonstrations
of modern embryology.

The Scale of Creation

Like other philosophers, Bonnet was prone to affirm
things that can never be known. He had picked up
from Leibnitz’® the saying, Natura non facit saltum,
and not realising the enormous difficulty of proving so
comprehensive a negative, he applied instead of scrutin-
ising the maxim. Thus he came by his chain of organ-
ised beings, a linear series of insensibly graded natural
objects, which leads from the four elements to man.
Between the different “classes and genera” Bonnet
finds connecting links (‘points de passage ou de liaison”).

1See Bonnet’s ‘‘ Accroissement des Germes,”’ @uvres, Tom. V, pp. 1-11
(1781).

2 «Rien ne se fait tout d’un coup, et c’est une de mes grandes maximes et des
plus verifiées, que la nature ne fait jamais de sauts. J’appelais cela la loi de la
continuité, lorsque j’en parlais autrefois dans les Nouvelles de la république
des lettres.” (Leibnitz, preface to Nouveaux Essais.)

BONNET 291

Hydra, for example, is a link between plants and
animals, the snails and slugs connect mollusks and
serpents (!); flying fishes connect ordinary fishes and
land vertebrates ; the ostrich, bat and flying fox connect
birds and mammals.

PIERRE LYONET

1707-1789

Traité Anatomique de la Chenille qui ronge le bois de Saule. 4to. The
Hague. 1760.3

The Larva of the Goat-moth

The Traaté Anatomique is perhaps the most laborious
and beautiful example of minute anatomy which has
ever been executed. All the details of structure are
given with extraordinary fidelity. The dissection of the
head of a caterpillar is a feat which will never be sur-
passed. Nearly the whole interest of the volume lies in
the plates, for the text is little more than a voluminous
explanation of the figures.

It is not without surprise that we find that Lyonet
was an amateur, who had received no regular training
either in anatomy or engraving, and that he had many
pursuits besides the delineation of natural objects. He
came of a French Protestant family, driven out of
Lorraine by the tyranny of Louis XIV, was brought
up for the Protestant ministry, turned to the bar, and
finally became cipher-secretary and confidential trans-
lator to the United Provinces of Holland. He is said to
have been skilled in eight languages. His first published
work in natural history consisted of remarks and drawings
contributed to Lesser’s Insect Theology (1742). About

1 Copies dated 1762 have a plate representing the microscope and dissecting
instruments used by the author.

292 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

the same time, Trembley was prosecuting his studies
on the freshwater polyp, and Lyonet gave him some
friendly help. Those who care to turn to the preface of
Trembley’s famous treatise (see p. 279) will see how
warmly Lyonet’s services are acknowledged. He made
all the drawings, and engraved eight of them himself,
while Trembley is careful to note that he was not only
a skilful draughtsman, but an acute and experienced
observer.

Lyonet complains in his preface that while he had
been engaged upon a Recuerl Historique (apparently a
general account of Insects), others had managed to
publish interesting facts which he had discovered. He
resolved to set about a work of smaller compass, and
fixed upon the anatomy of the Goat-moth larva. Even
here he was anticipated by De Geer, whom he did not
consider a very formidable rival. After five years of
labour on the goat-moth larva, official work and intrigues
caused him to break off. Six more years passed, during
which he almost forgot the use of the burin; then he
returned to his insect studies, and in two years and a
half completed the Traité Anatomique with its eighteen
beautiful plates.

At the time when the Traité Anatomique was pub-
lished Lyonet meant to proceed with the description
of the pupa and imago of the goat-moth, and to trace
in detail the anatomical changes which accompany trans-
formation. He made some progress with the second
part, but found at the age of sixty that his eyesight
was impaired to such an extent as to make it impossible
to dissect or engrave any more. Twenty years later he
still hoped to put forth a volume of insect anatomy.
He had by him the materials collected for the second
part of the Traité Anatomique, the notes and drawings

LYONET ' 293

intended for the Recueil Historique, and a study of the
sheep-tick, earlier than that on the goat-moth. He did
not live to carry out this intention, but long after his death
the papers, illustrated by fifty-four plates, were published
in the Mémoires du Muséum. The plates deal with the
sheep-tick ; Mallophaga (Anoplura); mites and ticks ;
the house-spider ; Dytiscus, Hydrophilus and some other
beetles ; the life-histories of various Diptera and Lepi-
doptera ; and the later stages of the goat-moth. The
student of life-histories finds valuable details in these
posthumous memoirs, but they are too difficult and too
dry for ordinary readers.”

AUGUST JOHANN ROESEL VON ROSENHOF
1705-1759

Die monatlich-herausgegebene Insecten-Belustigungen. 4 vols. 4to. Niirn-
berg. 1746-61.

A short biography by his son-in-law, Kleemann,’
supplies nearly all the information which we possess
concerning the personal history of Roesel, whose
Insecten-Belustigungen* (Insect Recreations) is well
known as an extensive collection of life-like pictures of
insects and other small animals. During most of his
career he bore the name of Roesel only, though he was
entitled to use the addition of “von Rosenhof,” and this
he did in his last five years. He was brought up as a
painter and engraver, and became expert in the fashion-

1Tom. XVITI-XX. 1829-32.

2Some account of Lyonet’s memoir on Hydrophilus is given in my Aquatic
Insects.

3 Insecten- Belustigungen, Vol. IV, p. 3.

4Roesel sometimes uses the singular, sometimes the plural form in his
title-pages.

294 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

able art of miniature. From an early age he took an
interest in the life of insects, which he was destined to
study with passionate devotion. When not much above
twenty years old, he visited Denmark and Hamburg.
At Hamburg he examined the beautiful insect-drawings
of Madame Merian, and determined to draw insects
himself. Settling at Niirnberg he became a favourite
painter of miniatures, and was much employed by pass-
ing travellers. Greatly to the surprise of his friends,
he began to collect and rear insects. ‘‘ Why trouble,”
asked all Niirnberg, ‘about mischievous and revolting
creatures, which can never have been made by the
beneficent Creator, but probably by the devil himself?”
Even cultivated persons were slow to respect so eccentric
a taste, and agreed with Malebranche that “les hommes
ne sont pas faits pour considérer des moucherons.” But
Roesel persisted in studying and drawing insects until
he had attained a skill equal to that which he had
admired in Madame Merian. He had many difficulties
to contend with; he was unlearned, and knew no
foreign language; he was untrained in anatomy or
natural history ; he had no microscope. But difficulties
like these disappear before a firm resolution. Roesel
got hold of Derham’s Physico- Theology, Swammerdam’s
Biblia Nature, and Réaumur’s Histoire des LIusectes.
A friendly physician taught him to dissect, and helped
to give to his descriptions what they called “ Reinigkeit
des Styli.” A professor of mathematics showed him
how to grind lenses, and to make a solar microscope,
which had never been seen in Niirnberg before. Roesel
and some few like-minded associates searched the country
for caterpillars and beetles, and a portfolio was soon
filled with exquisite drawings. The thought of publish-
ing naturally suggested itself, and in 1741 appeared the

ROESEL VON ROSENHOF 295

first number of a monthly serial called Insecten-Belus-
tegungen, which consisted of a few pages of description
and a single quarto plate. The work became popular,
and sold so well that before long two plates instead of
one were issued with each part. In time the monthly
parts were collected into volumes, of which three and
an imperfect fourth were ready by 1759, the year of
his death. Roesel’s plates, all engraved by his own
hand, amount to over three hundred, many of them
crowded with detail. Not even this laborious under-
taking sufficed for the author’s energy; he studied the
comet of 1744, and illustrated its changes by an
engraved plate; he investigated the frogs, salamanders,
and lizards of Germany, and exhibited their structure
and development in twenty-four double-folio plates
(1758). His patient labours ceased only with his
life. In the year 1752 his health failed; he was
paralysed, and it seemed as if his labours were at an
end. But some strength returned. Though unable to
go abroad, he sent into the fields for water-weeds, and
with his unimpaired right hand engraved the beautiful
figures which fill the last twenty-seven plates of the
third volume of the Insecten-Belustigungen. By the
use of electrical and other treatment, his powers were
so far restored that he was able to go about the house
again. The sudden death of his wife in 1757 was a
heavy blow, but he went on bravely with his fourth
volume, and had completed forty plates, with their
descriptions, when the end came, March 27th, 1759.
After Roesel’s death his son-in-law, Kleemann, en-
graved and published many more of the drawings,
mixed apparently with new ones, and thus completed
a fourth volume, his supplement being often counted as
Vol. V. Translations, continuations, and abridgements

296 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

were attempted in French, Dutch, and English ; all but
one of them remained imperfect. Schwartz published
a Nomenclator, in which modern names are given to
the figures. Roesel’s original drawings are still pre-
served.
Aquatic Beetles

Roesel begins his account of the water-insects with
the Dytiscus family, and Dytiscus marginalis is his first
example. He employs no scientific nomenclature, and
merely distinguishes two ‘“‘ genera” of water-beetles, viz.,
the flattened forms and those with prominent rounded
back ; then he goes on at once to the species, for which
he has no accepted names, either Latin or German. The
egg, larva, pupa, and imago of Dytiscus marginalis are
described and figured; the changes of the larval skin
and other minute particulars of the life-history are
pointed out. So unfamiliar at that time were the
habits of a Dytiscus that Roesel had at first no notion
what to feed his captive larvee upon. Nevertheless he
remarks many things which might have escaped a less
attentive observer; he knows for instance that the
larva comes up to the surface to breathe, and hangs
head downwards by a pair of tail-projections. He
watched the capture of a victim, and the sucking of its
juices, though he does not mention the perforated
mandible. Frisch taught him that the larva quits the
water before pupating, but he had to learn by experience
that the earth into which it retreats must be damp. He
knows the marks of the sexes, and gives an excellent
account of the suckers on the forelegs of the male. On
the whole the description is quite as good as that given
in most popular books of our own day, but the figures
are much better than those which we are accustomed
to see.

ROESEL VON ROSENHOF 297

Roesel distinguishes another Dytiscus, of which he
says no more than that it is very like the first in all its
stages. He then goes on to describe and figure the
Cybister (since been named after him) and an Acilius.

The last of the water-beetles which Roesel describes is
what we now call Hydrocharis caraboides, for which he
has no more convenient name than “the middle-sized
black water-beetle with convex back.” Of this he gives
a full and interesting account, the best which I know.}
He tells us that long after he became acquainted with
the full-grown beetle its larva and pupa remained un-
known to him. One day, while peering into the water
of a ditch, he saw a new insect-larva, which had several
pairs of feathered appendages sticking out from the seg-
ments of the abdomen. He brought it home, inferred
predatory habits from the form of the mouth-parts,
and succeeded in keeping it alive until it underwent its
transformation, when he discovered that he had been
rearing a Hydrocharis. His account gives hints which
' would be useful to any modern investigator of an aquatic
insect of unknown habits.

The Goat-moth

So much of the Insecten-Belustigungen is occupied
with life-histories of Lepidoptera that it seems indis-
pensable to give a specimen of them. The Goat-moth
has been chosen because Roesel’s account of the natural
history forms an excellent complement to Lyonet’s
anatomical memoir of the same insect.’

Roesel has no name for the Goat-moth (Cossus

1Hydrocharis caraboides had been described by Swammerdam. See his

dedication of De Respiratione, his Hist. Insect. Gen., p. 144, and his Biblia
Nat., p. 286 and pl. xxxii, 5.

2Vol. I, Sammlung iv, pp. 113-128, pl. xvii, xix. Roesel’s account of the
Puss-moth larva is cited infra, p. 306.

298 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

ligniperda),’ and is obliged to speak of its larva as
“the large red and flesh-coloured wood-eating cater-
pillar.” It was long before he succeeded in rearing the
pupa and moth. When he captured the larve, which
he found creeping on the ground under trees, he offered
them leaves of all the plants which grew about, but they
refused to feed on any of them, and soon perished of
hunger. A friend happened one day to take Roesel to
see an oak tree which was beset with these larvee ; many
of them lay between the bark and the wood in a dark,
ill-smelling slime; others had eaten their way into the
solid wood. Having thus learned that his large red
caterpillars were wood-borers, Roesel was able to keep
them alive and study their habits. When alarmed, they
sought to defend themselves by biting and ejecting a
reddish fluid from the mouth. Some captive larve
escaped from a glass dish, which had been left for a few
minutes. Being curious to find out how they travelled
up the smooth surface, Roesel put them back into the
dish, and watched their proceedings. He found that
they paid out a silken thread from the mouth, attaching
it to the glass on the right and left sides alternately ;
this gave a sufficient foothold, and enabled the larvee to
climb up the glass. It was not easy to keep them im-
prisoned ; when the glass vessel was closed by a wooden
lid they gnawed the wood, and it was found necessary
to use a metal lid, and bind it firmly to the vessel.
Roesel was surprised to find that his caterpillars
remained unchanged through the winter, and that their
life-history occupied at least two years. During the

1Vol. I, Sammlung iv, pp. 113-128, pl. xviii, xix (1741). Réaumur (Vol. I,
pp. 308-311, pl. xvii, figs. 1-7) had already given a slight account of the Goat-
moth. Roesel does not quote Réaumur, nor does Lyonet quote either of them ;

the practice of reference to earlier writers was not yet established, though
not unknown.

ROESEL VON ROSENHOF 299

cold season they rested in a temporary cocoon, which
they made in the wood. When food ran short, the
stronger ones ate the weaker, leaving nothing behind,
for even the hard integument of the head was crushed
by the powerful jaws and swallowed. At pupation a
cocoon was made of sawdust (or rather of gnawed wood)
held together and lined by silk. The long larval stage
was followed by a short pupal stage, lasting three weeks
or less. When the time of emergence arrived, the pupa
burst through its cocoon, and lay with the fore part of
its body exposed until the moth was ready to escape.
Moths of both sexes were obtained ; the males were dis-
tinguished by their pectinate antenns. Roesel tells us
that the fertile female lays her eggs in the cracks of oak
bark, so that the issuing larve can easily procure a
supply of the sap, which is their first food.

The Crayfish

Many readers of Huxley’s Crayfish will remember
that he extracts some amusing remarks from Roesel,
whose account of this “insect” is almost worthy of
Swammerdam. Roesel figures the external form, the
chief viscera, the scaphognathite (which he describes as
an implement with which the crayfish brushes its teeth),
and the leech-like Branchiobdella, which attaches itself
to the gills. But why does he give the crayfish the
colour of a boiled specimen ?

Dispersal of Fruits and Seeds

Having finished his account of the water-beetles,
Roesel should have taken up the dragon-flies, which
come next in his plan of description, but here we find
interpolated, much to our surprise, an account of winged
and plumed fruits and seeds. Roesel apologises for his

300 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

digression in these words :—‘‘ While I was engaged
upon the dragon-flies, I accidentally caught sight of the
winged fruits of the sycamore. It struck me that there
was a resemblance between the wings of plants and the
wings of insects. Since some writers had compared
insects and plants without noticing this point, I thought
it might not be disagreeable to my readers if I were to
offer my reflections thereupon.”

He figures the winged fruit of the sycamore, the
winged seeds of pines, and the plumed fruits of several
composites. He shows that wind will carry them far
away, and hinder them from lying heaped about the
parent plant; that the sycamore fruit and the pine seed
revolve as they descend, giving time for the wind to act
upon them; and that the plumes which make up the
“ Feder-Ballen” of a dandelion revolve as they drift
across the fields, bearing along the heavier fruits
which hang beneath.

Freshwater Polyps

Vol. IIT ends with a supplementary chapter entitled
Historie der Polypen der siissen Wasser und anderer
kleener Wasserinsecten diesiges Landes. Roesel begins
by telling us that when Trembley’s discovery of Hydra
became known to him, he determined to procure fresh-
water polyps and study them. But diligent and long
continued search in the pools and streams of Bavaria
brought to light no Hydra until many years had
elapsed. Roesel’s quest was not, however, fruitless.
Though he found no Hydra, he found many compound
animals which were new to him, and these he described
and drew. When he became paralysed, and unable to
leave his room, he sought to console himself with the
microscope, and sent out for a supply of pond vegetation.

ROESEL VON ROSENHOF 301

A bowl covered with duckweed was brought to him,
and on searching the duckweed he found abundance
of the long-desired Hydra. He was now able to study
the structure and activities of the polyp, and to dis-
criminate the various species. These investigations
gave him full employment during months of seclusion.

Trembley had seen the ovary of Hydra and noted the
discharge of the eggs, but had not clearly traced the
development of the polyp to the egg. Roesel took
much trouble to complete the life-history, but without
altogether succeeding.

The floating duckweed also yielded a freshwater polyp
of a very different kind, which resembled Trembley’s
“polype & panache” and Baker’s “ bellflower-animal-
cule,”? but differed in various details, and especially
in the mode of branching. The figures of the three
naturalists now make it clear that Trembley and Baker
had before them the polyzoan called Lophopus ; Roesel’s
polyzoan was a Plumatella. The small rounded particles
about as big as pins’ heads, which developed plumes,
and which Roesel calls “der kleinere Federbusch-polyp,”
are now recognised as the young of the polyzoan
Cristatella.’

We cannot fail to admire the enthusiasm and industry
of Roesel, his delight in the study of living things, and
his skill as a draughtsman. But we must not omit to
mention that his judgment is often unsound, and that he is
too fond of putting forth what can only be called guesses.
He was, like nearly every naturalist of the eighteenth
century, an untrained amateur, and as he had engaged
to supply monthly descriptions of unfamiliar animals, it
is not surprising that he should now and then publish

1 Employment for the Microscope (1753), pl. XTI, figs. 15-22.
2 Allman, Freshwater Polyzoa, p. 77.

302 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

explanations which do him no credit. He observed for
example in his Plumatella the bodies which are now
called statoblasts, a peculiar kind of gemmules. These
must, he thinks, be seeds which had been taken in as
food. He persuaded himself that they were the seeds of
duckweed, and supported the identification by a figure
which is totally fallacious. Since his supposed seeds of
duckweed were found lying loose in the body-cavity, he
concluded that Trembley’s description of a continuous
alimentary canal, which has been confirmed by all
modern observers, must be wrong.

The “‘ History of the Freshwater Polyps” contains an
account of Nais, to which several plates are devoted.
We can recognise Stylaria proboscidea,’ Nais serpentina,?
and two others.’

Seven plates are occupied with Stentor, Vorticella,
Carchesium, and other ciliate Infusoria. Leeuwenhoek
had discovered these things long before; Trembley,
Baker, Schaeffer, and Brady had called them polyps, and
placed them next to Hydra. Roesel gives much better
figures than his predecessors. The history of the Polyps
ends with Volvox (which had been already described
by Leeuwenhoek and Baker) and a minute, colourless
animalcule, which is named the lesser Proteus, because
Roesel took it to be a smaller species of Baker's Proteus.‘
He gives many careful figures of this, and shows that it
frequently changes its shape, that its granular contents
are enclosed by a firmer external layer, and that it
occasionally divides spontaneously into two. If he had
recognised the nucleus and the contractile vacuole, his
account would have been fairly complete. This is the

1Pl. 78, Figs. 15-18; pl. 79, fig. 1. 2Pl. 92. 3PL. 93.

‘Baker's Proteus was aciliate Infusorian. Employment for the Microscope,
ch. v., pl. X, fig. 11.

ROESEL VON ROSENHOF 303

first description of that Amceba which has since become
so famous.

Imitators of Roesel

Martin Froben Ledermiiller published at Niirnberg
in 1760-3 a Microscopic Delight for mind and eye
(Mkroskopische Gemiiths- und Augen-Ergétzung), which
is chiefly remembered as the first book in which the
Infusoria are separated under that name. Martin
Slabber’s Natural History Recreations (Natuurkundige
Verlustigingen), published at Haarlem in 1778, contains
the first figures of a Sagitta, of a rock-barnacle nauplius,
of a stalked-barnacle nauplius, and of the Noctiluca
which makes sea-water luminous.

THE INVESTIGATION OF THE PUSS MOTH
1634-1892

Ever since the days of Ray and Willughby careful
observers had been noting the structure and habits of
common insects, each adding some interesting detail to
those which he found already recorded. Let us take a
single case as an example of many. It would not be
easy to make a better choice than the Puss Moth, a
large and conspicuous insect common in Central Europe,
and so peculiar in its early stages as to tax whatever
powers of observation, description and delineation the
naturalist may happen to possess, besides raising hard
questions, which demand a knowledge of other things
than natural history.

Moufet? gives six lines and a rude figure to the Puss-
moth caterpillar, making mention of its coal-black eyes

1Insectorum Theatrum, p. 183 (1634).

304 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

(“oculi anthracini”), eyes, we may remark, which are
such only in appearance, for they are unfurnished with
lenses, and are not borne on the head, but on the
thorax. Izaak Walton' translates Moufet’s Latin into
picturesque English, but adds no further particulars.
“You shall find him” (the Puss-moth caterpillar)
“punctually to answer this very description: His lips
and mouth somewhat yellow, his eyes black as jet, his
forehead purple, his feet and hinder parts green, his
tayl two forked and black, the whole body stain’d with
a kind of red spots which run along the neck and
shoulder-blade, not unlike the form of Saint Andrew's
Crosse, or the letter X, made thus crosse-wise, and a
white line drawn down his back to his tayl; all which
adde much beauty to his whole body.”

Goedart, Madame Merian and Albin figured the larva,
and Goedart remarked the appearance of a human face
given to the fore part of the body by an arrangement of
black dots; he mentions also the cocoon made of willow
wood.

Frisch’ shortly described the stages, and gave tolerable
figures of them. He noticed the protrusible tails of the
larva, and the fact that they can be directed to any part
of the body which is touched ; this led him to the con-
clusion that they are defensive, but what the enemy
might be, and how the tails ward off an attack he did
not undertake to explain. Frisch mentions the retractile
head of the larva, and figures the round black spots
which look like eyes, but laughs at Goedart for having
seen in them the resemblance of a face.

Réaumur* gives a much fuller and better account of
the caterpillar, noticing the rose-coloured hood within

1 Compleat Angler, chap. v., 3rd ed., 1661.
2 Beschr. Ins. Teutschland, Pt. VI, ch. viii. ?Vol. II, Mém. vi.

INVESTIGATION OF THE PUSS MOTH 305

which the head can be enclosed, but passing over the
resemblance to a face. He explains the mechanism by
which the tails can be protruded and withdrawn, offering
the very probable conjecture that they are used to drive
away ichneumons. He compares the cocoon to a wooden
box, in which the pupa lies secure, and shows that it is
made of fragments of wood cemented together by saliva.
Then comes the puzzling question :—How does the moth
extricate itself from the hard shell, within which it under-
goes its transformation? Réaumur could only guess
(rightly, as it happened) that it secretes a liquid which
softens the cement.

De Geer’ discovered a transverse slit beneath the
head of the larva, from which an irritating fluid could
be ejected. Once when he happened to touch the larva,
it shot into his face two jets of a clear liquid, some of
which entered his eye, and for a short time caused sharp
pain. He dissected out the reservoir from which the
liquid is discharged, and remarked that captive larvee
soon lose the secretion or the power of ejecting it.? He
makes also the interesting observation that the puss-
moth larva is sucked by small flies, which become dis-
tended by its greenish blood. The caterpillars seemed to
feel little or no pain, and no after-effects were perceived.*

Bonnet * describes the slit behind the head of the

1 Hist. des Insectes, Vol. I, p. 324.

2JIn another place De Geer describes the ejection of a liquid by the larva of
the willow saw-fly, but his observations seem to have escaped the notice of
those naturalists who have in recent times discussed the case of the puss-moth
larva. He says that the saw-fly larva, when touched, can throw out several
jets from the sides of its body, in a horizontal direction and to a distance of a
foot or more. The liquid is clear, of greenish colour, and of a disagreeable
odour. Captive larve lose the power of ejection. The pores by which the
liquid issues are situated just above the spiracles. (Vol. II, pp. 936-7.)

3 The flies were perhaps those of Simulium.
4 Sav. Htrang., Vol. II, p. 276 (1751) ; Quvres, Vol. II, pp. 17-24.
U

306 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

larva (between the jaws and the first pair of legs) ;
the conical protrusible papille, and the pungent liquid
which is discharged. It has, he says, the taste of strong
vinegar, and causes acute pain when rubbed into a slight
wound ; it reddened blue paper (coloured, no doubt, with
litmus, which had been introduced by Duclos in 1680)
and the blue flowers of chicory. The liquid was stored
in a chamber with contractile walls. Bonnet believed
that it was used to soften the cocoon when the moth is
ready to come forth, a conjecture which has not been
confirmed. He found similar papille in many other
Lepidopterous larvae, which he identifies as well as
he can.

Lyonet’ worked out more fully the modifications of
the pair of anal feet in caterpillars, showing that they
may disappear altogether, or as in the puss-moth larva,
be converted into protrusible tails. He remarks the
retractile head, the appearance of a face (a cat’s face, he
thinks), the raising of the hinder part of the body from
its support, so that the tails may be brought over the
head, when the larva is threatened, and the brandish-
ing of the tails. A singular proof is given of the strength
of the jaws of this larva. One which was kept in a
lead-lined box bit off pieces of lead, and made a hard
cocoon, partly composed of lead; after this, Lyonet
says, he would not have been surprised if it had made a
cocoon of brick. Examination of a cocoon from which a
moth had issued showed that in one place the shell had
been softened and dissolved. His figures are life-like,
and exhibit the characteristic attitudes of the larva, as
well as the unmistakable face.

Roesel? tells us that after searching long and without

1 Anat. de diff. Hspéces d’Insectes, p. 318, pl. xxxiv, figs. 1-15.
2Vol. I, Sammlung iv, No. 18.

INVESTIGATION OF THE PUSS MOTH 307

success for this caterpillar, he came unexpectedly upon a
good-sized specimen feeding upon a willow. He was
about to seize it when the threatening attitude of the
larva and the protrusion of a pair of long filaments from
the hinder part ofits body made him pause. He thought
for a moment of grasping the head-end, which looked
less formidable than the other, but as his hand came
near, the larva bent its filaments in that direction, and
Roesel shrank from provoking it. At last he found it
prudent to cut off the twig on which the larva stood,
and let it drop into his collecting-box. Three days later
a number of parasitic grubs crept out of the unlucky
caterpillar, the sure token of an early death, but Roesel
soon got more specimens, and completed his study of the
life-history. Use made him bolder, and he came to
think that the threatening attitude was a mere feint ;
the larva had, he thought, no real power of injuring an
assailant ; modern inquiries have shown that this con-
clusion was premature.

When the Puss-moth larva is alarmed, says Roesel, it
contracts its body, makes the hump on the third thoracic
segment more prominent, raises its fore part a little from
the ground, protrudes its filaments, and turns its head
towards the assailant. The head is set off by a red hood,
formed out of the segment next behind, and a pair of
dark spots, which look like staring eyes. Neither Roesel
nor Réaumur dwells upon the resemblance to a face.
Roesel recognises that the tail-filaments or their sheaths
represent the last pair of false feet, found in other
Lepidopterous larvee; he mentions their rose-colour,
their frequent retraction, and the curious fact that the
full-grown larva is very unwilling to brandish them.

The tails of the Puss-moth larva reminded Roesel of
the projectile filaments behind the head of the swallow-

308 THE SCHOOL OF REAUMUR

tail larva, which, as he remarks, emit a disagreeable
odour. He did not suspect that the Puss-moth larva
possesses a very similar organ behind the head.

The young larva, he tells us, is uniformly dark, but
at each change of skin the colour becomes modified, until
a leaf-green surface, diversified with streaks and patches
of other shades, is obtained. Male larve are usually
distinguished in their last stage by rose-coloured patches
on the hump, the seventh segment, and elsewhere. The
larvee are very sluggish, and move about as little as
possible.

In our own generation the most remarkable peculiar-
ities of the Puss-moth larva have been interpreted as
defensive structures; it escapes notice by its general
protective resemblance to the food-plant, and deters its
enemies by its terrifying appearance and attitude, as
well as by its power of ejecting an irritating fluid.
All these points have been worked out by Prof. Poulton ;
I will not weaken by abridgement his interesting dis-
cussion, which is readily accessible to every naturalist.

The irritating fluid, shot out from the slit behind the
head, has been chemically examined by Poulton, who
finds that it is a strong solution of formic acid, the
same acid which constitutes the poison of ants and of
the stinging-nettle.

In order to soften the wooden cocoon, the moth
emits from its mouth an alkaline liquid, which contains
between one and two per cent. of caustic potash; it
uses part of the pupal skin as a shield which it can
press against the softened shell of the cocoon, without
risk of injury from the corrosive liquid.?

An expansion of knowledge similar to that which has

1 Poulton, Colours of Animals, chap. xiv.
2 Latter, Trans. Entom. Soc., 1892, pp. 287-292; 1895, pp. 399-412.

INVESTIGATION OF THE PUSS MOTH 309

been traced in the case of the Puss Moth has gone on in
every branch of natural history, new contrivances being
perpetually discovered and old ones better described.
Two or three centuries of such labour have made us so
rich in natural knowledge that we grieve at times to
think how small is the fraction which the best memory
can retain.

SECTION VIII. LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

}
CARL LINNAUS (LINNE)

1707-1778

Systema Nature. Fol. Lugd. Batav. 1735; ed. X,2tom. 8vo. Holmia,
1758-9; ed. XII. 3 tom. 8vo. Holmiz. 1766-8.

Classes Plantarum. 8vo. Lugd. Batav. 1738.

Genera Plantarum. 8vo. Lugd. Batav. 1737.

Species Plantarum, 2tom. 8vo. Holmiz. 1753.

Philosophia Botanica. 8vo. Holm. et Amst. 1751.

Hortus Cliffortianus. Fol. Amst. 1737.

Flora Lapponica. 8vo. Amst. 1737.

Flora Suecica. 8vo. Lugd. Batav. 1745.

Fauna Suecica. 8vo. Lugd. Batav. 1746.

Ameenitates Academicz. 8vo. Holm. et Lips. 1749-85. Three more vols.
published at Erlangen, 1785-90.

Lachesis Lapponica, or a tour in Lapland. . . from the original manuscript

journal of... Linneus. By J. E. Smith. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1811.

Car Linna&us was born in 1707, in the same year with
Buffon and Bernard de Jussieu, one year after the death
of Tournefort, and two years after the death of Ray.
His father was co-minister, afterwards minister, of the
parish of Stenbrohult in the province of Smaland. The
province of Smaland in southern Sweden is occupied by
a monotonous succession of rocky knolls, lakes, swamps
and forests; it is intensely glaciated, and the ice-worn
rocks are either covered with a scanty moorland vegeta-
tion or smothered in drift. Wooden houses, painted
red and roofed with live turf, and churches with wooden
spires and detached belfries, are scattered about. The

LINNAXUS 311

trees are chiefly firs and birches, with an occasional
clump of beeches. Lakes, such as Lake Moéckeln, on
which Stenbrohult is situate, often shine through the
branches. Linneus thought this a fit birthplace for a
naturalist.

Many of his kindred were farmers, doctors or pastors,
several of whom took names (Lindelius, Linnzus, Tili-
ander) from a tall lime-tree, near which they lived.

The parsonage at Stenbrohult had a good garden, and
the pastor, who was something of a naturalist, taught
his son botany, besides the ordinary learning of the
grammar-school. Linneus’ teachers, whether at home
or at the gymnasium, thought him a dunce. There was
even talk of binding him to a shoemaker, but a doctor,
who happened to be consulted, pointed out that the boy’s
enthusiasm for natural history was a promising sign, and
advised that he should be brought up to medicine.

At the age of twenty Linnzus entered the university
of Lund, and now began a bitter struggle, which was
destined to last for years. Poverty, insufficient teaching,
and paltry jealousies long hindered him from rising. He
went to Lund with hopes of assistance from a relative,
who was a professor of the university, but the first sight
which met his eyes on arrival was the professor’s funeral.
After a year at Lund he migrated to Upsala, taking
with him a small sum of money, his only patrimony.
At Upsala he found that no lectures in anatomy, botany
or chemistry were to be had; the professor of divinity,
Olaf Celsius, was, it is true, a botanist, almost the
only one in Sweden, but he was at the time living at
Stockholm. Among the undergraduates however was a
young man, named Peter Artedi, who was working hard
at chemistry and natural history ; Linnzus sought his
acquaintance, and the two students encouraged and

312 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

helped one another. When Celsius at last returned to
Upsala, he took Linnzeus into his house, and allowed
him to work in his library.

At this time Linnzeus read a review of a pamphlet by
Vaillant,’ which advocated the view that the stamens
are the male organs of the plant, a view which had been
slowly gaining ground ever since the days of Grew. It
used to be thought that the reading of Vaillant was
a chance spark which kindled in Linneeus a mighty
flame. He himself believed, and allowed his pupils to
announce, that the hint taken from Vaillant had incited
him to prove “with infinite labour” that the stamens
and pistil are sexual organs ; and that the discovery of
the real function of organs so characteristic of the
flowering plants justified their use in the definition of
classes and orders. We are now obliged to recognise
that neither Vaillant nor Linnzus made any solid con-
tribution to the doctrine of the sexuality of plants, and
that the merits of the sexual system are independent,
or nearly so, of the functions of the parts employed
in it.

Olaf Rudbeck, the younger, professor of botany at
Upsala, being now seventy years of age, invited Linnzeus
to become his adjunct. He began to lecture, set up the
botanical excursions which afterwards became famous,
and with Rudbeck’s help improved himself in ornitho-
logy. In 1731 the Academy of Sciences at Upsala
desired to promote the exploration of Lapland, and
invited Linnzeus to undertake the journey. He set out
from Upsala on May 13, 1732 (0.8.), being that day
twenty-five years old. He describes his equipment in
these words: “ My clothes consisted of a light coat of
West Gothland linsey-woolsey cloth without folds, lined

1 Infra, p. 343.

LINNAVUS 313

with red shalloon, having small cuffs and a collar of
shag, leather breeches, a round wig, a green leather cap
and a pair of half-boots. I carried a small leather bag,
half an ell in length but somewhat less in breadth, fur-
nished on one side with hooks and eyes, so that it could
be opened and shut at pleasure. This bag contained
one shirt, two pair of false sleeves, two half-shirts, an
inkstand, pen-case, microscope and spy-glass, a gauze
cap to protect me occasionally from the gnats, a comb,
my journal and a parcel of paper stitched together for
drying plants, both in folio, my manuscript Ornithology,
Flora Uplandica and Characteres generict. I wore a
hanger at my side, and carried a small fowling-piece, as
well as an octagonal stick graduated for the purpose of
measuring.” Noting everything remarkable, he followed
the post-road to the north, passing along the Baltic
coast to Umed. From Umea he visited southern
Lapland, then made his way to Luled and visited
Lulean Lapland. Ascending the river from Lulea, he
crossed the mountains to the Norwegian coast near
Bodo. On July 15 he set out to return, and by a
laborious and dangerous journey made his way back to
Luleé. From this point he proceeded to Tornea, at the
head of the Gulf of Bothnia, then turned south and
followed the eastern coast of the gulf to Abo. On
October 10th he returned safe to Upsala.

The journey occupied five months, during which
nearly four thousand English miles had to be covered,
mostly by riding on bad roads, or traversing wild
country on foot. In descending the River Lulead he
and his guide were on one occasion forced to trust
themselves to a rude raft, and to steer their course in
the dark. The timbers of the raft parted, and it was
with great difficulty that the travellers gained the

314 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

shore. The Laplanders had a propensity to fire at
strangers, and one of them aimed at Linnzus ; though
the bullet missed its mark, it struck close to the place
where he was standing.

He was repaid for his labours and risks by many
curious sights. Reindeer and lemmings came repeatedly
under his notice. Once he was able to study a fresh
beaver. His biographer, Stoever, says that Linnzeus
discovered a hundred undescribed plants during the
journey. He attended to many things besides natural
history, observed the mode of life of the Lapps, their
tents and furniture, their huts mounted on poles, the
dress of the men and women, the threads of reindeer
sinew, the leather cradles lined with moss and hair, the
great herds of reindeer, the bread, made of flour mixed
with chaff, the inner bark of pine-trees, or the powdered
roots of buckbean, the different ways of making curds
and whey, sorrel-leaves and the dried leaves of Pin-
guicula being among the expedients employed, the
various sorts. of cheese, the traps for grouse and
ptarmigan, the salmon-pots, bows and arrows, sledges,
snow-shoes and walking-poles, the calendars made of
splinters of wood, the entertainments of the Lapps,
their music and their marriages.

The journey to Lapland was the first of a series of
Swedish explorations made by Linneeus, either alone or
as the chief of a small scientific staff. In 1734 he made
a six weeks’ tour in Dalecarlia, in 1741 he was sent to
report on the Baltic islands of Oland and Gothland ; in
1746 he visited West Gothland, and in 1749 Scania;
the last three tours were state-surveys of a simple kind.

On returning from Dalecarlia Linneus made a short
stay in Falun, where he became acquainted with the
daughter of Moreeus, the town physician. He proposed

LINNAEUS 315

to her, and was accepted, on condition of becoming
qualified to practise medicine; this was to prepare the
way for settling in Falun as assistant and successor to
his future father-in-law. In April, 1735, he set out for
Holland, in order to graduate at the ancient university
of Harderwyck; Morzus (probably) and some other
friends provided a scanty supply of money. The
business of graduation was soon accomplished ; a thesis
on intermittent fevers (which Linneus attributed to
particles of mud taken up with the drinking-water)
being accepted as proof of competence. He was now
at liberty to visit botanical gardens and _ professors.
Gronovius was so much struck by the merit of a first
sketch of the Systema Nature that he asked leave to
print it. Boerhaave, the first physician as well as the
first naturalist in Holland, provided him with letters of
introduction. Burmann, professor of botany at Amster-
dam, took him into his house for some months, and
then a wealthy banker, named Cliffort, who had a
country-house and fine gardens at Hartenkamp, near
Haarlem, entertained him as long as he could be induced
to stay. Such was the respect paid to a knowledge of
plants, which was already recognised as very uncommon.

The next three years, most of which Linnzus spent
in Holland, were years of extraordinary activity. He
now published nine books, which were destined to give
a powerful impulse to natural history; among them
were the Fundamenta Botanica, the Genera Plan-
tarum and the Flora Lapponica. In Amsterdam he
fell in with his old friend and fellow-student, Peter
Artedi, who was at the moment without subsistence or
prospects. Linnzeus obtained for him an employment
suited to his taste, the description of the fishes in the
collection of Albert Seba, an apothecary of Amsterdam.

316 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

The work was nearly finished when Artedi, returning
by night from Seba’s house, fell into a canal and was
drowned ; he is still remembered as one of the founders
of Ichthyology.

In 1736 Linneus paid a three-months’ visit to
England, the cost being borne by Cliffort. Sir Hans
Sloane, though seventy-six years of age, was still presi-
dent of the Royal Society. Linnzus called upon him,
but Sloane cared nothing about innovations in botany,
and gave his visitor a cool reception ; so did the West-
phalian Dillenius, Sherardian professor at Oxford, and
Philip Miller, gardener to the Apothecaries’ Company
at Chelsea, though a little later Dillenius would have
been glad to keep Linneeus in England, to help him
with his botanical undertakings.

On returning to Holland Linnzeus once more took up
the old laborious life, but it was not long before his
health gave way. He quitted Hartenkamp, intending to
return home, but allowed himself to be detained for a
year at Leyden. A rumour that the young lady whom
he had left in Falun was being pressed by another
suitor then reached his ears, and after this nothing
could detain him. He set out for Paris, where he met
Bernard de Jussieu, Réaumur and other prominent
French naturalists, took ship for Sweden, and arrived
there in July, 1738. At this moment his best prospects
seemed to lie in the direction of medical practice. His
merit as a botanist was known only to a few, and was
deliberately lowered by his rivals. Count Tessin how-
ever exerted himself to procure pensions and offices for
him. lLinneus was married at Falun in 1739, but the
wife for whom he had waited so long proved to be
selfish and disagreeable. .

The death of Rudbeck in 1740 created a vacancy in

LINNALUS 317

the chair of botany at Upsala. Linnzeus was a candi-
date, but Rosen, an old rival, got the post. Next year
Linnzeus was elected to the professorship of physics
and anatomy. The two professors now agreed to
change places, and in 1742 Linneus attained the
position which had been his ambition for years, the
chair of botany in the chief Swedish university; he
was then nearly thirty-five years old. After this his
life was one of steady routine. His instructions for
botanical excursions’ give us a glimpse of one part of
his work. Even the dress of the student is prescribed ;
he is to wear a short tunic and thin trousers reaching to
the ankle, besides a cap or hat with broad brim; he is
to carry Linneus’ Systema Nature and other useful
books, a lens, a botanical penknife and needle, a lead-
pencil, a Dillenian vasculum of sheet copper, a bundle
of botanical paper, and an insect-box. The excursions
are to occupy one or two days a week in the summer-
season, to begin at seven in the morning, and to last
twelve hours. The botanic gardens at Upsala were
another chief interest with Linneus. After the great
fire of 1702 they had been neglected, but were speedily
restored by the new professor, who tells with pride
of the great improvements which he introduced.

No part of his professorial labours was better planned
or better executed than the sending-out of competent
pupils to investigate the natural history of distant lands.
To every naturalist some of their names are familiar,
either as daring travellers, or as the discoverers of re-
markable plants and animals. In the Systema Nature
Linnzus commemorates the services of fourteen, to
which several more might be added. One-third of the
number died abroad in their youth, and half of them

+ Philosophia Botanica.

318 LINNZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

left published accounts of their discoveries. Hasselquist
explored Syria, Egypt and Palestine. Forskal accom-
panied Carsten Niebuhr to Arabia and Egypt. Sparrman
travelled in Kaffirland, and shared Captain Cook’s second
or antarctic voyage. Thunberg visited the Cape, Java,
Deshima (in the harbour of Nagasaki, where the Dutch
had been permitted to establish a small factory) and
Ceylon. Kalm, after whom the Kalmia is named, spent
three years in studying the botany of North America.
Solander is remembered as the companion of Cook and
Banks.

The old age of Linnzeus was sweetened by prosperity
and honour. He became wealthy, according to the
standard of professors, and was able to spend part of
the year in a pleasant country-house at Linné’s
Hammarby, a few miles to the south-east of Upsala.
Here, amidst boulders and pine-woods, which a little
resemble those of his native SmAaland, he built himself
a handsome dwelling, with a summer-house or garden-
study in the grounds. Many a naturalist has ridden
out from Upsala to see the place, which is kept up, as
nearly as may be, in the same state as when the great
naturalist died there. Every mark of distinction which
is thought appropriate to a man of learning was bestowed
upon him by his university, his sovereign and his nation.
Gout troubled him, but he kept it off by a diet of wild
strawberries. His powers began to fail at sixty, and
paralysis followed, but he was able to work almost to
the last. He died in 1778 at the age of seventy. His
son was made professor in his stead, but was unable to
maintain the dignity of so great a name; he died in
1783 at the age of forty-one. Thunberg then filled the
chair with greater distinction. The eldest of the four
daughters of Linnzeus, Elizabeth Christina, published a

LINNAUS 319

short paper in the Transactions of the Swedish Academy
of Sciences for 1762, describing flashes emitted by the
flowers of Tropzolum, first observed in her father’s
garden at Hammarby. At the death of his only son
the collections and books of Linnzeus were offered by
his widow to Sir Joseph Banks, and ultimately purchased
by J. E. Smith. They are now the property of the
Linnean Society.

The name of Linnzus is commemorated after the
custom of botanists by the beautiful little Linnea
borealis, one of the commonest flowers of the Scandi-
navian woods.

THE SYSTEMA NATURA

The twentieth century naturalist finds himself tolerably
at home in the Systema Nature of Linneus. It is
true that many of the classes and orders, especially of
flowering plants, strike him as unnatural, and he sees that
Linneus did not know enough about the lower inverte-
brates or the lower cryptogams to classify them properly,
but the genera and species wear a familiar look, and
both the method and the language are those of modern
natural history. The canons of the Philosophia Botanica
are here practically exemplified, and we see how great
is the resulting improvement. Ray was in some im-
portant respects more enlightened than Linnzeus, as in
his separation of the Monocotyledons from the Dico-
tyledons, but how slow and ambiguous does his system
appear to any one who has worked by the Linnean
definitions! It was Linneeus who first assigned every
known animal and plant to its class, order, genus and
species. Uniform binary nomenclature had been gradu-
ally making its way, though not without resistance, ever
since the time of the Bauhins. Rivinus in 1690 had

320 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

ridiculed the prolix names then frequent, and had
shown that a name of two words at most, the first
being the generic name and the second a qualifying
adjective, would suffice to denote any species. Linneeus
further regulated the usage to be employed,’ and his
authority won universal acceptance for the much-needed
reform.

The three Equide then known are thus defined in
the Systema Nature :—“ Caballus. Cauda undique
setosa. Asinus. Cauda extremitate setosa, cruce nigra
supra humeros. Zebra. Fasciis fuscis versicolor.” Note
the terseness which Linnzeus gains by dropping all the
verbs. The extreme conciseness of Linnzeus is not in
this instance possible to the modern zoologist, who has
at least seven recent Equide to consider, besides a long
series of finely graded fossil forms.

The description of the habits of the cuckoo is a
characteristic example of the Latin style of Linnzeus.
‘Coccyx, incubandi ipse impotens, semper parit in
alienis nidis, imprimis in Motacille, majori ex parte
singula ova, aufuratis prioribus ; educat subditum adul-
terato foeta nido et sequitur nutrix fidelissima mensibus
zestatis pulcherrimis frondescentiz, florescentiz, grossifi-
cationis, dum ille aridis insidens arborum ramis famelicus
semper cuculans advocat nutricem, donec sub ortu
canicule ingratus eam occidat devoretque, unde orbus
victitet rapina Avicularum Larvisque Brassice aliarum-
que; non tamen in Falconem transformatur.” The
Latinity of Linnzus is very likely as strange to the
classical scholar as the old fables cited in this quotation

1 When the genus included but one species, Rivinus thought that the
generic name by itself would suffice, but on this point he was overruled
by Linneus.

2 Philosophia Botanica, 1751.
3 Ray adopts the same practice, but not uniformly.

LINNAUS 321

to the modern naturalist, but both will admit the spirit
and picturesqueness ofethe language. Here is a writer
who can say forcibly and concisely whatever he has in
his mind. In the description of his Amphibia almost
every word expresses repulsion :—‘‘ Amphibia pleraque
horrent corpore frigido, colore lurido, sceleto cartilagineo,
vita tenaci, cute nuda, facie torva, obtutu meditabundo,
odore tetro, sono rauco, loco squalido, veneno horrendo.”
Contrast the cheerful words in which the horse is
described :—‘‘ Animal generosum, superbum, fortissimum
in currendo, portando, trahendo, aptissimum equitando,
cursu furens; sylvis delectatur, &c.” The mournful
wail of the cat (‘‘clamando rixandoque misere amat”)
is equally well hit off. His biographers tell us that in
-his youth Linnzeus had read a good deal of Pliny the
elder. He thought little of grammar or style in com-
parison with accuracy of fact, and would rather, he said,
have his ears boxed thrice by Priscian than once by
Nature.

Besides the animal and vegetable kingdoms Linnzeus
recognised, as the alchemists had done before him, a
Regnum Lapideum. He went beyond the alchemists
in classing the minerals and rocks by genera and species.
These misleading analogies have been long abandoned.
Mineralogy and Petrology cannot adopt the methods of
Biology, and the terms genus and species lose all mean-
ing when applied to lifeless objects, which are incapable
of descent or true relationship.

Some disapprobation was caused by the place assigned
to Man in the Systema Nature, where he is included
in the same order with the apes, and in the same genus
with the orang. Haller remarked that Linnzeus could
hardly forbear making man a monkey or the monkeys

men. Cuvier gave Man an order to himself, and Owen
x

322 LINNZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

a sub-class, but these attempts to isolate him have not
commended themselves to later zoologists.

THE AM@NITATES ACADEMIC

These graduation-theses are of interest to the historian
of biological progress. Each bears the name of some
graduate of Upsala, but the hand of Linnzeus is every-
where apparent. We must suppose that he suggested
the topics, furnished the learning required for handling
them, enriched them with his mature thoughts, selected
and edited them. Sometimes he quotes them as his
own.?

In Vol. II of the Amenitates (Biberg on Giconomia
Nature) and again in the Philosophia Botanica, pub-
lished in the same year (1751), Linneeus discusses the
natural methods of dispersal of seeds with abundant
knowledge and acuteness. He enumerates seeds dis-
persed by the wind, classifying them according to the
part which is specially modified, mechanically ejected
seeds, hooked seeds and fruits, seeds swallowed by
animals, seeds dispersed by running water, &c. Then
follows an account of the defences of seeds, most of
which we should now place among means of dis-
persal (deceptive appearance, burying in the ground,
spines, &c.).

The thesis entitled “Sponsalia Plantarum” (J. G.
Wahlbom) is admitted both by Wahlbom and Linnzus

1The Sponsalia Plantarum, the Vires Plantarum and the Flora Economica
are thus quoted in the Philosophia Botanica, preface and § 52. Dr. Daydon
Jackson, who has paid close attention to all matters connected with Linnus
and many other naturalists, informs me that it is now impossible to decide
which of the papers in the Amenitates Academice are to be attributed to
Linneus. Some are the work of the respondents, except for emendations
supplied by the professor, while in other cases, according to the testimony of
one of them, J. G. Acrel, the matter of the thesis was dictated by Linneus,
the candidate for graduation having merely to supply the Latin wording.

LINNAUS 323

as the work of the latter. After a review of the history
of the sexual theory the Fundamenta Botanica of
Linneeus receives undue praise, for in this treatise, we
are told, the sexes of plants are established with such
certainty that no one could hesitate to build upon so
solid a foundation an extensive system of botany. The
functions of the various parts of the flower are explained.
One fact is mentioned which seems to have impressed
Linneus as a boy of sixteen. A vegetable-marrow
grown at Stenbrohult had the male flowers removed as
they appeared, with the result that not a single fruit
was matured.

The contrivances which promote fertilisation are then
described. Linnzeus seems to regard self-pollination as
the rule, though he is aware that pollen may be trans-
ferred from a distant plant. He affirms that the
anthers and stigma ripen at the same time, and that
their relative position is usually such as to facilitate
self-pollination. This last notion is taken from Morland
and Geoffroy (infra, p. 342). In Campanula the pollen
is said to cling to the outside of the hairy style, and
to reach the stigma (of the same flower) by “certain
channels,” which the describer would have been puzzled
to demonstrate. Sprengel half a century later became
convinced by his own observations that it is a mistake
to suppose that all bisexual flowers are self-fertilised ;
it would be nearer the truth to say that “nature does
intend that any flower should be fertilised by its own
pollen.”’ Pollination, when not brought about by the
structure of the flower, is, according to Linneus, effected
either by wind or by insects. He makes the interest-
ing remark that mon- and dicecious plants, especially
trees, often flower before leafing, so that pollination is

1 Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur, pp. 4, 43.

324 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

not hindered by the foliage. Sprengel observes that
this is true only of wind-fertilised trees; the lime,
which is insect-fertilised, flowers in the height of
summer, though the branches are then clothed with
leaves,

Linnzeus suspected that the nectar of flowers promotes
pollination by insects. Relating after Quintilian the
story of a lawsuit between neighbours, one of whom
complained that his flowers were rifled by the other
man’s bees, he adds :—“ But in my opinion the bees do
more good to the flowers than harm, since by their
ceaseless labours they scatter the pollen and bring it to
the pistil.” He goes on to say that “it is not yet clear
what part the nectar plays in the physiology of the
flower.” It is sometimes said that Linnzeus was the
first to distinguish the nectaries, but Malpighi had
described them in the crown imperial seventy years
before. B. M. Hall in the Amenitates discusses their
function. He thinks that their secretion moistens the
ovary, and in this way favours the growth of the
embryo. He admits however that nectaries occur in
male flowers, which of course contain no embryo. In
the end he adopts the suggestion previously thrown
out by Linneus, viz. that the nectar is a food for
insects, which disperse the pollen by fluttering in the
flowers.

The Sponsalia Plantarum contains some observations
on hybrid tulips and cabbages. It is shown that two-
coloured tulips may be got by artificial fertilisation from
parents which are pure red or pure white. Cauliflowers
are liable to be fertilised by cabbage-pollen, and to pro-
duce common cabbages. By way of proof the story is
quoted from Ray’s History of Plants of an English
gardener who sold a great quantity of what he supposed

LINNAZUS 325

to be cauliflower-seed, and had to pay damages when
only common cabbages came up..

In another thesis there is a discussion of Linnzus’
wonderful speculation concerning the Metamorphoses of
Plants, and what he calls Prolepsis (Anticipation), a
speculation based on the ancient doctrine that the pith
is a vital organ, which furnishes the substance of which
the seed is formed. Leaves, bracts, calyx, corolla,
stamens and pistil are supposed to represent the growth
of as many years. The bracts and calyx are outgrowths
of the cortex, the corolla of the bast, the stamens of the
wood, the pistil of the pith ; elsewhere the identification
is a little different." Linnzeus got the suggestion of his
Prolepsis from Cesalpini.

THE SEXUAL SYSTEM OF PLANTS

It was natural for Linnzus to suppose that organs
universal in flowering plants, 7.e. stamens and carpels,
would furnish the basis of a simple logical classification
of flowering plants. The number of the parts would of
course yield particularly easy characters, as Cesalpini
had seen long before, and Linnzus accordingly made
number prominent in his system. He may possibly have
remarked that another part universal in flowering plants,
viz. the embryo, had yielded characters serviceable for
primary divisions, and that here too the divisions had
been founded upon number (of the cotyledons). Linnzeus
did not however trust to number alone, nor get all his
classes by counting stamens. The insertion of the
stamens, their inequalities of length, their occasional
union, their fusion with the styles, and the more or
less complete separation of the sexes were all attended

1Prolepsis Plantarum, by Ullmark and Ferber in Amen. Acad., Vol. VI;
introduction to Systema Nature.

326 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

to. Some old-established natural groups were thus
preserved. Linnzeus avoided the association of the
Rosaceze with the Ranunculacez, and kept the Labiates,
Crucifers, Composites and Orchids (with some few ex-
ceptions) free from mixture with alien genera. Not
even his own class-definitions could induce him to
break up the Leguminose into Monadelphia and Dia-
delphia, though he separated the decandrous genera.

The real test of any classification of living things
is :—What sort of groups does it yield? Some of the
Linnean classes and orders were soon seen to be un-
natural. To separate Anthoxanthum, Holcus and Zea
from the Grasses, Veronica from the Scrophularinea,
Salvia and Lycopus from the Labiates, Sanguisorba,
Poterium and Alchemilla from the Rosacez ; to associate
Mercurialis with Hydrocharis, Valerian with the Irids,
Potamogeton with Holly, and Arrowhead with Oak and
Beech ; to make an order out of Paris, Adoxa, Elatine
and Sagina, and a class (Polygamia) out of Musa, Vera-
trum, Holecus, Atriplex, Chamerops, Morus, Fraxinus,
Rhodiola, Empetrum, &c. must have troubled Linnzus
himself. Four of his twenty-three classes are natural
assemblages, but all these had been recognised before
under other names; two more might have been rectified
so as to become tolerable; the rest were unnatural.
Linnzus could find consolation only in the facility of
his system, which was almost indispensable to the
progress of systematic botany at that time. How a
handful of European botanists could have dealt with
the continual accession of new species from every
quarter of the globe, if they had been forced to ponder
difficult questions of affinity at every turn, it is not
easy to conceive.

Facility of course became less indispensable in time,

LINNAUS 327

and the anomalies of the Linnean system less tolerable.
Then the foresight of Linnzeus became evident. At the
very time when he was putting forth a system which
his admirers supposed to be immortal, he himself looked
beyond it to a system constructed on better lines.

If we are inclined to dwell upon the unnatural com-
binations of the Linnean system, it may be profitable to
remember that De Candolle’s grouping of the natural
families, which at a later day seemed almost indispens-
able to rapid determination, had faults of the same
kind, and that no substitute for De Candolle’s grouping
has so far met with general acceptance. Some artificial
simplification may long persist in all practical systems
of flowering plants. The Linnean method gave present
ease at the expense of future improvements. Without
condemning it outright, or separating it from all other
methods by calling it “ artificial,” we may admit that
Ray’s Synopsis and the Linnean Fragments and Bernard.
de Jussieu’s garden at Versailles indicated a better path.
This was in substance the declared opinion of Linnzeus
himself.’

Linnzus lectured on his natural orders, and late in
life expounded his philosophy of a natural system to a
favourite pupil, Giseke, who has left an interesting
record of his master’s theory of classification.

Paul Dietrich Giseke On the Natural Orders* was
never seen by Linneus, and was not published till
fourteen years after his death. It was Giseke’s plan
to set forth the doctrines of his great master without

1 The sexual system and the Fragments of a Natural Method are both given
in the Genera Plantarum (1737) and the Classes Plantarum (1738) of Linnzus.

2«<T have never pretended,” he wrote to Haller, ‘‘that the method [of the
sexual system] was natural.” Hpist. ad Hallerum, Vol. I, p. 284.

3 Caroli a Linne Prelectiones in Ordines Naturales Plantarum. E proprio
et J. C. Fabricii manuscripto edidit P. D. Giseke. 8vo. Hamburg, 1792.

328 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

criticism or important amplification. Jussieu’s Genera
Plantarum, which had appeared in 1789, is barely
mentioned. Some description of each order and of its
principal genera is attempted, but no distinctive char-
acters are given, for reasons which will shortly appear.
Affinity was of course not yet traced to descent from
common ancestors. lLinnzeus had compared species to
the provinces of a map,’ a comparison which not only
suggests the regular subdivision of primary into
secondary, secondary into tertiary groups, and so on,
but also the possibility that a group of any rank may
directly link more than two others. Giseke exhibits
his own “ genealogico-geographical map,” and this map
shows fungi, alge, mosses and ferns, leading up to
conifers and amentaceze on one side, to palms and other
monocotyledons on the other; it is a dim forecast of a
phylogeny of plants. .
By far the most interesting passage in the book is the
report of a conversation between Linneus and Giseke,
which belongs to the year 1771. The conversation has
been quoted in Whewell’s History of the Inductive
Sciences, from which the following abridgement is
made (8rd ed., Vol. III, pp. 269-271) :—‘‘ Giseke began
by conceiving that an order must have that attribute
from which its name is derived—that the Umbellate
must have their flower disposed in an umbel. The
‘mighty master’ smiled, and told him not to look at
names, but at nature. ‘But,’ (said the pupil) ‘what is
the use of the name, if it does not mean what it pro-
fesses to mean?’ ‘It is of small import,’ (replied
Linneus), ‘ what you call the order, if you take a proper
series of plants and give it some name, which is clearly

1« Plant omnes utrinque affinitatem monstrant, uti Territorium in Mappa
geographica.” Phil. Bot., § 77.

LINNAUS 329

understood to apply to the plants which you have
associated. In such cases as you refer to, I followed
the logical rule, of borrowing the name a potior, from
the principal member. Can you’ (he added) ‘give
me the character of any single order?’ Grseke. ‘ Surely,
the character of the Umbellate is, that they have an
umbel?’ Linneus. ‘Good; but there are plants which
have an umbel, and are not of the Umbellate.’ G. ‘I
remember. We must therefore add, that they have two
naked seeds.’ JZ. ‘Then, Echinophora, which has only:
one seed, and Eryngium, which has not an umbel, will
not be Umbellatee; and yet they are of the order.’
G. ‘I would place Eryngium among the Aggregate.’
L. ‘No; both are beyond dispute Umbellate. Eryngium
has an involucrum, five stamina, two pistils, &. Try
again for your character.’ G. ‘I would transfer such
plants to the end of the order, and make them form the
transition to the next order. Eryngium would connect
the Umbellatee with the Aggregate.’ LZ. ‘Ah! my
good friend, the transition from order to order is one
thing; the character of an order is another. The
transitions I could indicate; but a character of a
natural order is impossible. I will not give my reasons
for the distribution of natural orders which I have
published. You or some other person, after twenty or
after fifty years, will discover them, and see that I was
in the right.’”

ESTIMATE OF LINNZUS
Cuvier’ sets forth the merits of Linnzeus in a passage
which is both just and instructive, so far as it goes :—
“ Aimable, bienveillant, entouré de disciples enthousi-
astes, dont il se faisait autant de missionnaires, attentif
1 Hloge d’ Adanson, p. 289.

330 LINNAZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

& enricher de leurs découvertes des éditions multipliées,
favorisés par les grands, lié par une correspondance
active avec les savans en crédit, soigneux de faire
paraitre la science aisée, plus que de la rendre solide
et profonde, le naturaliste suédois voyait chaque jour
étendre sa doctrine, malgré la résistance des amours
propres et des préjugés nationaux.” Sachs in his History
of Botany gives a much more penetrating estimate.
Industry, enterprise, sagacity and love of order are
conspicuous in all the work of Linneeus. Rapidity of
execution he carried to a point incompatible with
excellence in detail. Though, like many men of a
strong practical bent, he had a quick eye to his own
interest, he was habitually guided by high motives.
His enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge was bound-
less. He could not sleep for thinking of the treasures
brought back from the southern seas by Banks, and
endangered, as he thought, by the apathy of Solander.
Knowledge that could be applied to the wants of man-
kind had a special value in his eyes. Not a few of the
theses in the Amenitates Academice relate to such
every-day matters as esculent plants, plants used in
dyeing, the ravages of crops by insects, &c. During his
journeys in Sweden, according to the instructions of
those who sent him out, he accumulated notes and
sketches relating to rural industries. In his journey to
Oeland and Gothland he remarked the power which
mairam-grass possesses of binding blown sand, and
recommended the planting of this grass on dunes, &c.
It has since been used with advantage on the shores of
the North Sea and the Baltic, on Cape Cod, in New
Zealand, &c. The oak timber stored in the Swedish
dockyards was damaged by some boring insect, upon
which Linnzeus was asked to report. He identified it

LINNAUS 331

as a beetle (Limexylon navale), and pointed out that by
‘sinking the timber under water at the season when the
beetles emerge, the plague would be abated. It is said
that this simple remedy was completely successful.

Early in his career he acquired by unsparing labour a
knowledge of the species of plants and a judgment in
arranging them which was very uncommon. When he
went to Holland as a young man of twenty-eight, he
was already qualified to direct the progress of systematic
botany, and the lead which he then took he never lost.
He had a fair knowledge of birds, and had worked at
quadrupeds, fishes and insects; his acquaintance with
ores, crystals and petrifactions was slight, but he regularly
attended to them on his many journeys.

In his own opinion and that of many of his contem-
poraries the greatest service which he rendered to natural
history was the creation of the so-called sexual system
of plants, a method which had no merit except that of
facility. He gave a far better proof of his insight by
insisting upon the necessity of framing at some future
time a natural system, and by indicating as early as
1738 sixty-five natural families of flowering plants.
Cataloguing and a rough arrangement were in his
opinion the indispensable preliminary to a truly natural
system of plants. His zoological system was the fullest
and best that had then been devised. His binomial
nomenclature, and many of his classes, orders, genera
and species form part of the permanent fabric of zoology
and botany. He laboured at the improvement of
museums and botanic gardens, and left behind him a
careful description of the flora and fauna of his own
country.

Linnzeus was deficient in the patience and candour

1Linneus, Iter West-Gothland, p. 173; Systema Nature (under Cantharis),

332 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

necessary for the profitable discussion of deep questions
of biology. He was, for example, utterly unable to deal
with the great unformulated question of the nature of
affinity. He did indeed undertake to explain how
affinities arose, but no practical naturalist could have
explained it worse. He propounds the general principle
that all the species which now exist were created in the
beginning.’ But doubts of various kinds and different
degrees of weight had occurred to himself and others;
we shall mention only one. The water-gentian (Vil-
larsia or Limnanthemum) has the fruit of a gentian, but
the leaf of a water-lily. This could, Linnzeus supposes,
mean nothing less than that the water-gentian is a
hybrid between a gentian and a water-lily, and with
incredible rashness he affirmed that the pollen of a
water-lily had fertilised the pistil of a gentian. No
proofs were adduced, and without pausing to sub-
stantiate his crude speculation, Linneeus went on to
extend it without limits. The Creator, he tells us, had
originally fashioned a few independent forms, which he
allowed to commingle; thence came genera. Nature
then took the genera in hand, and commingled them,
thereby producing species. Lastly, chance operated
on the species, and produced varieties. The wonder is
that a naturalist who, stans pede in uno, put forth so
daring and unsupported a theory, should ever have been
listened to again on the affinity question. It is a trifle
that he contradicts his own general principle (quoted in
the last foot-note).”

1“Species tot enumeramus, quot diverse forme in principio sunt create.”
Phil. Bot., § 157.

2See Linneus, Phil. Bot., §157 and passages there cited, Genera Plantarum,
6th ed., 1764, p. v. (not in earlier editions), Fundamentum Fructificationis
and Plante Hybrid in Amen. Acad.; also Sachs’ comments in History of
Botany, Eng. trans., pp. 105-7.

LINNAUS 333

At the close of the first half of the eighteenth century
the prospects of biology were unusually bright. The
anatomy of accessible animals, and especially of insects,
had been diligently pursued. Minute anatomy had
been explored by Malpighi, Leeuwenhoek and others.
Swammerdam, Réaumur, De Geer, Trembley and Lyonet
had shown how life-histories can be profitably studied.
Ray had laboured at the classification of plants and
animals. In two cases indeed a promising start had not
been followed up; Malpighi and Grew’s work on the
anatomy of plants and Malpighi’s work on the develop-
ing chick failed to incite other students to pursue the
study with the necessary concentration. The impulse
which Linnzeus gave to systematic natural history in
the middle of the seventeenth century had no doubt its
special value. But more than this was wanted ; nothing
less than the harmonious development of every side of
biology could really suffice, but biologists were too few
and too ill-instructed for so great a task. They made
system not so much the natural complement of other
biological studies as a substitute for them. To collectors,
gardeners, travelling naturalists and pharmacists a ready
method of naming plants seemed to be the thing of
chief interest, and they demanded (the Linnean corre-
spondence furnishes instances) that the method should
be made as easy as possible. Linnzeus was convinced
that a truly natural system of plants, very different
from his own temporary expedient, was both essential
and attainable; he had also a strong conviction that
natural history must make itself the servant of man-
kind for important practical purposes. But he was not
uniformly true to his convictions; in his elementary
books, which were very widely read, he used language
which was taken to mean that system and system alone

334 LINNZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

is the chief aim of botany. Readers of our own age are
startled by the emphatic language in which Linnzeus
seems to teach that the chief business of the botanist is
to name and place plants. He would have us to believe
that the more species a botanist knows the worthier
(preestantior) he is; that they are true botanists who
can name all plants; that training in botany aims
at turning out in a single year men who can tell all
plants at a glance, without teacher, plates or descrip-
tion.’ Such language is evidently exaggerated; without
explanation it is not even intelligible. Method is no
doubt of fundamental importance to natural history, but
it is absurd to claim that a student of Upsala, who had
learned to tell a hundred native species by the help of
the Linnean key, was a greater botanist than Malpighi,
who possessed only the first rude outlines of a botanical
system ; or that a collector with his cabinet of two or
three hundred Lepidoptera, all of which he could name
without book, was.a greater zoologist than Réaumur,
who could hardly define any species of insects with
precision.

For about a century (say from 1750 to 1840 or 1850)
those naturalists who treated the authority of Linneus
with servile respect made it their chief, almost their
sole business, to catalogue, arrange, name and define.
This was strictly true only of the botanists, for in
zoology the Linnean method, far less peculiar and
exclusive, was less obstinately clung to. Nowhere was
the deterioration more evident than in England, where
botanists thought of little beyond the naming of plants.
Even the teachers of botany rarely used the microscope,
and knew little or nothing of minute structure. The
experimental study of plant-physiology was pursued

1 Philosophia Botanica, §§'7, 151, 256; introduction to Genera Plantarum.

LINNAUS 335

only by rare and isolated individuals, among whom
Stephen Hales (1677-1761) and Thomas Andrew Knight
(1758-1838) were conspicuous. The remarkable though
inconclusive experiments of Priestley on the nutrition
of green plants were relinquished without an effort to
foreign chemists. Robert Brown (1773-1858), the one
great English botanist who devoted himself to the
tracing of natural affinities, to structure and develop-
ment, was in all things anti-Linnean. France never
accepted the Sexual System of Linneeus. Adanson and
the Jussieus kept their attention fixed on the enter-
prise conceived and partly realised by L’Obel, Ray and
Linnezeus himself, viz. the recognition and delimitation
of truly natural families of flowering plants. De
Candolle, a Genevese, but French by training and
long residence in France, became the most luminous
exponent of their views. France did much more than
maintain a protest against the narrower Linnean spirit ;
she was during almost the whole period of obscuration
the leader of biological thought, and her influence
tended to enlargement and emancipation. Germany,
which had at first received the Sexual System coldly,
became more and more Linnean as time went on, and
exhibited in something like the same proportion the
feebleness of the English botanists.

It would be unjust to lay the whole blame of this
temporary and partial arrest of development upon any
one man. No scientific worker is so many-sided or so
prophetic that he can be trusted to legislate for a great
department of natural knowledge. Aristotle, Linnzeus
and Cuvier were three of the most fruitful labourers
in the field of biological science; if each of the three
was allowed to obstruct progress, we must seek the
cause in that unreasoning submission which mankind

336 LINN4US AND THE JUSSIEUS

so readily accords to those who have succeeded in over-
coming its unreasoning distrust.

When we look back from the point of view familiar
to the biologists of the twentieth century, we cannot
help observing how completely Cuvier’s estimate of
Linneus (supra, p. 329) ignores the philosophic weak-
ness of Linnzeus, and especially his inferiority in this
respect to his great contemporary, Buffon, who grasped
the conception of a reign of law, and hailed the faint
dawn of an evolutionary theory. Linneeus had advanced
no further in this direction than St. Augustine.

Our regard for this practical, vivacious, rapid, labori-
ous man, is enhanced by such a little domestic picture
as that which Fabricius gives of him :—“‘ We only
resided at Upsala for his sake. We did not see nor
hear anybody but him and his family. He loved like-
wise the company of his young friends, as he called us,
and every day, in town or on his estate, he came to our
room with his pipe, and stayed three or four hours in
liberal discourse, but always on topics of natural history.
He always took our observations in public and private
with true benevolence, refuted or reproved them, and
laughed heartily when we could find ingenious argu-
ments to puzzle him.”?

All defects in the mind and character of Linneus
seemed to be made good by his boundless energy.
Confident of his own powers, he dealt rapidly, some-
times impatiently, with every difficulty as it arose,
passing on without delay to another and yet another
task. Men of this temper accomplish great things in
business or politics; in science too they often win dis-
tinction, but it is not they who read the deeper secrets
of nature.

1Freeman’s Life of Kirby, p. 200.

EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 337

SOME EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER

It must have been known from time immemorial that
fruits are preceded by flowers, and that when the
blossom is nipped no fruit is to be expected, but though
knowledge of the fact is ancient, knowledge of the cause
of the fact is as modern as the seventeenth century a.D.
Herodotus, in the middle of the fifth century B.c.,
brought back from his travels the highly suggestive
information that the date-palm is of two sexes, and that
in Assyria the female tree was fertilised by dusting it
with the branches of the male, but this clue was not
followed up, partly no doubt because of the difficulty of
the inquiry, but partly because a philosophy which
treated general propositions as the source from which
particular truths are to be drawn was allowed to over-
ride observation. Aristotle showed how imperfectly he
understood the case of the date-palm by teaching that
in plants the male and female elements are united, so
that fertilisation is unnecessary. Had the date ripened
its fruit on the northern shores of the Mediterranean,
it must continually have reminded botanists that it
depended upon artificial fertilisation, and truer notions
might have come to prevail. Theophrastus was no
better informed than Aristotle; he supposed that both
male and female dates bear fruit, and shows no real
knowledge of the functions of the parts of the flower,
not even distinguishing stamens from styles. His
diligence in observing and describing far exceeded his
acuteness in explaining, and he made no experiments.

Pliny described the flower of the white lily as possess-
ing a slender pistil (pilwm, or as others read, filum)
and anthers (croci staminis, according to one reading),

which stand up in the centre ; elsewhere he notes the
Y

338 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

yellow-tipped stamens of the rose, and has a special
name (apices) for the anthers. The case of the date-
palm was now better understood than it had been in
the time of Theophrastus. Pliny says that the most
attentive observers were of opinion that all trees and
herbs were sexual. This does not, however, prevent
him from saying that many were flowerless, while some
bore no fruit.

The revivers of botany in the sixteenth century were
too much occupied with the identification and descrip-
tion of medicinal plants to study plant-physiology.
Not even in the seventeenth century did it occur to
Malpighi, familiar as he was with physiological experi-
ment, that an experimental test of his explanation of
the function of stamens was required, or that it might
be possible to find out whether native dicecious plants,
many of which he knew, ripened their fruit and seeds
when the males were excluded. It was probably by mere
reflection upon the presence of minute grains in the
anther, their liberation by bursting of the capsule, and
their adhesion to the stigma, that Millington and Grew’
were able to throw out the conjecture that the anther is
the male organ. Ray’ reinforced their argument by
citing once more the classical instance of the date-palm,
confirmed by the recent testimony of Prosper Alpinus
(1592), who had seen for himself that the date does
not ripen its fruit without pollination. In the desert,
says Ray, where artificial fertilisation cannot take place,
the wind may possibly answer the same purpose. He
pointed out that the parts which Grew had called the
male organs are sometimes borne on separate plants,
and mentioned common examples, though he failed to

1Supra, pe 171.
* Hist. Plantarum, Vol. I, cap. x.

EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 339

profit by the strong suggestion of a conclusive experi-
ment which his own words conveyed.

Some nine years after the appearance of Grew’s
Anatomy of Plants one man struck the right path, and
proved experimentally what Millington and Grew had
divined, but failed to establish, viz., that the anthers
are the male organs of the flowering plant. Rudolph
Jacob Camerarius, professor of botany at Tibingen, was
led to attend to the sexes of flowering plants by noticing
that a female mulberry-tree, growing at a distance from
males, on one occasion bore fruit, though the fruit only
contained abortive seeds. This led him to experiment
on another plant with separated sexes, the annual mer-
cury. Two female plants, when isolated, produced only
abortive seeds.’

Fuller and more connected experiments are given in
a letter De Sexu Plantarum, published in 1694.?

In the seventeenth century an important scientific
communication, dealing with a question of long stand-
ing, was expected to traverse the learning of the topic,
and so large a part of the Epzstola of Camerarius is
occupied by the views of ancient writers on generation
that it takes an hour or so to discover the truly signi-
cative passages. One is here quoted, which of itself
suffices; others are given in Sachs’ History (Bk. III,
ch. i).

“Two examples,” says Camerarius, “show how serious
are the effects of removing the anthers. When I pulled
off the first clusters of [male] Ricinus-flowers, while the
anthers were still unexpanded, being careful to prevent
the growth of fresh ones, and to leave entire the rudi-

1 Ephem. Leopold. Carol. Acad., 1691.

2Reprinted by Mikan in R. J. Camerarii Opuscula Botanici Argumenti,
8vo. Prag. 1797. The Linnean Society possesses 4 copy of the original
edition, which once belonged to Linneus, and is annotated by him.

340 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

ments of the seeds [fruits] with their stalks, not a single
perfect triple seed [fruit] was produced, but only empty
vesicles, which at last withered away. In like manner
the fringe of styles of maize having been carefully cut:
through, the two cobs [spice], which afterwards appeared,
were devoid of seed [granum], though there were many
empty vesicles.” }

From these and similar experiments Camerarius con-
cluded that the anthers are necessary to the production
of embryos; they are in fact the male organs, the
ovaries being the female. He added that botanists
should endeavour to find out how far the pollen pene-
trates the female organ. Sachs justly commends him
for faithfully recording his failures, due no doubt to
access of pollen in unsuspected ways.

It was natural that Camerarius should take it for
granted that ovules are fertilised by pollen derived
from the same plant. Ray’ had indeed remarked the
wafting of pollen by the wind, but the first distinct
mention of pollination by insects that I can call to
mind is that made by Philip Miller in 1724.? Sprengel,
a hundred years after Camerarius, was the first to show
that many flowers are regularly cross-fertilised.

Little attention was paid at the time to these

1“Tn secunda plantarum classe, quibus flores a fructu in eadem modo
planta semoti sunt, binis quoque mihi exemplis patuit, quam egre ferant
plante apicum defectum. Cum enim primos Ricini globos, antequam apices
panderent, detraxissem, et novorum proventui caute occurrissem, salvis, que
aderant, seminum principiis cum suo thyrso, nusquam perfectum semen
tricoccum obtinui, sed vacuas vesiculas hesisse, tandem exhaustas et corru-
gatas periisse conspexi. Similiter coma Frumenti turcici jamjam pandenda
dextre resecta, binz postmodum spice, omni prorsus grano destitutz, com-

paruerunt, utut inanium vesicularum maximus esset numerus.” (Mikan’s
reprint, pp. 75-76.)

2 Hist. Plantarum, loc. cit.

3 Infra, p. 345. It is hard to be sure of a first mention, and earlier observa-
tions than Miller’s may turn up.

EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 341

important results ; botanists went on surmising and ex-
plaining, relying a good deal on the sagacious conjecture
of Grew, but thinking, and probably knowing, little
of what Camerarius had proved.1. The few who could
judge his work saw that his experiments were decisive
as to the fact of fertilisation by means of the pollen of
the anthers. Kélreuter, the most competent among
these few, strongly asserted that it was Camerarius who
had founded the doctrine of the sexuality of plants by
his observations and experiments.’

Samuel Morland ® started a theory of the process of
fertilisation in flowering plants which, though largely
unfounded, influenced later contributors to the dis-
cussion. He supposed that the pollen is “‘a congeries
of seminal particles, one of which must be conveyed
into every ovum before it can become prolific.” The
style is a tube (this is taken from Tournefort) designed
to convey these “seminal plants” into their nest in
the ova. In the Crown Imperial the anthers are “so

1In this very year 1694, Tournefort was teaching (Hlémens. de Botanique,
p. 47), that ‘‘on peut regarder ces étamines comme les vaisseaux excrétoires,
qui se déchargent dans les sommets (anthers), c’est-4-dire, dans les bourses
particuliéres ; ot il se desséche, et se réduit ordinairement en poussiére trés-
menue”; and (p. 55) that ‘‘le pistille du Coquelicot est orné dans le haut de
quelques bandes veloutées. Ceux de la Populago, de la Gentiane, de la
Campanule, et presque tous les pistilles des fieurs sont veloutés dans leur
extrémité; c’est-d-dire couverts de poils fistuleux, ou parsemés de petites
vessies, qui servent apparemment 4 verser ce que le suc nourricier contient
de moins propre pour la nourriture des jeunes: fruits. ‘Les fentes qui sont 4
leurs extrémités servent peut-étre & donner entrée a l’air, qui s’insinuant
dans chaque loge, contribue 4 l’accroissement des graines, et ce suc gluant
en défend entrée aux insectes qui pourraient les ronger, comme le remarque
Mr. Malpighi.”

2 Preprimis, quia inde patebit, Kclreuterum fuisse, qui demonstravit,
quod R. J. Camerarius fuerit, qui primus sponsalia plantarum per observa-
tiones et experimenta cognovisset ” (Mikan’s preface).

3 Phil. Trans., No. 287 (1703).

4The ‘‘seminal particles” of the preceding sentence have become ‘‘ seminal
plants.” We remark that Morland writes under the influence of Leeuwenhoek.

342 LINNEZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

artfully placed that they turn every way with the least
wind,” they are of about the same length as the style,
whose top is “villous,” so as to catch the pollen as it
flies out of the anther. The rain washes, or the wind
shakes the pollen down the tube, till it reaches the
ovary. In garlic the anthers overtop the style, so as to
shed the pollen more easily into its orifice. Morland
recommends those who possess good microscopes and
skill in managing them to find out “whether the ova
or unimpregnated seeds are ever to be found without a
seminal plant [embryo].” He mentions the perforation
(micropyle) of beans, peas, &c., ‘at which, I suppose,
the seminal plant did enter.”

Claude Joseph Geoffroy’ developed a little further
the explanation offered by Morland. His chief con-
tribution to the discussion is the mistaken statement
that the anthers and stigma are regularly so placed that
the pollen can fall from one to the other. Whether the
flower is erect or drooping, the anthers, he says, stand
higher than the stigma.” He saw that in drooping
flowers the stigma will not face the anther from which
the pollen is to fall, but this difficulty did not lead him
to see whether he had not made some mistake. It is
surprising that Linnzeus should have adopted twenty-
five years later, and apparently without inquiry, a
statement so questionable.*

Richard Bradley, who was afterwards professor of

1‘ Observations sur la structure et lusage des principales parties des

fleurs.” Acad. des Sciences, 1711, pp. 210-234. A short notice of Geoffroy
will be found on p. 230.

2 Geoffroy’s supposition would have been disproved by a tolerably extensive
survey of actual flowers, which would have shown among other things how
often the relative positions of anther and stigma vary with the stage of ripe-
ness ; in many cases the ripe stigma occupies the very same place which was
previously occupied by the ripe anthers.

3 Supra, p. 323.

EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 343

botany at Cambridge, published in 1717 his New Im-
‘provements of Planting and Gardening, in which he
showed that tulips may be sterilised by complete
removal of the unripe anthers, hazels by removal of
the catkins. If however the female flowers of the hazel
are afterwards dusted with catkins from another tree,
their fertility may be restored. Bradley mentions
hybrids produced by the cross-fertilisation of Auriculas
and other flowers.

Sebastien Vaillant put forth in 1718 a theory of the
flower,’ which is known to have produced an effect upon
the mind of Linnzeus some ten years later.? Vaillant
had been a pupil of Tournefort (who was now dead) and
a protégé of Fagon, who is remembered not only as
chief physician to Louis XIV, but also as one of those
who laboured to turn the Jardin du Roi into a well-
equipped botanic garden. Fagon had been professor of
botany and director of the Jardin; when he retired
Vaillant took his place, which Tournefort had aspired
to. The king had been persuaded by Fagon to build
one hothouse in 1714 and another in 1717, the money
for the second being advanced by Fagon. In June 1717
there was a formal opening of the re-organised Jardin,
and on this occasion Vaillant delivered a discourse,
defending and expanding the doctrine of Grew. The
experiments of Camerarius are not mentioned, and
Vaillant adduces no experiments of his own. The

1 Discours sur la Structure des Fleurs. 4to. Leyden, 1718, in French and
Latin. An earlier edition (Paris, 1717) is mentioned by Fée in the Nouvelle
Biographie Universelle.

?Dr. Daydon Jackson informs me that Linnzus’ earliest utterance on the
sexuality of plants is his tract Preludia sponsalia plantarum, written in 1729,
but first printed in 1908. At the time of writing Linneus had not seen
Vaillant’s Discours, but only a review of it in the Leipsic Acta. He recog-

nised that the stamens and pistils were the essential parts of the flower, and
determined to found a new method upon them.

344 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

flower is defined as a collection of sexual organs, usually
enclosed by protective tunics. Like Malpighi, Vaillant
pushes very far the analogy with the reproductive
organs of the higher vertebrates, making the filament
of the stamen a vas deferens and the styles Fallopian
tubes. ‘Il est trés certain,” he says, “que le germe se
rencontre dans les semences des plantes qui n’ont point
été fecondées, et avec le parenchyme desquelles ce
germe ne fait qu'un continu.” He exposes with merciless
sarcasm the real or supposed mistakes of Tournefort,
Geoffroy and Leeuwenhoek, the fallacies of the hollow
style, of pollen passing into the micropyle, and of
fertilising filaments. His contempt rouses at last
indignation in his readers, who begin to ask whether
Vaillant himself is altogether above criticism. Before
the Discours comes to an end the question receives its
answer. Vaillant cites Malpighi (at second-hand) to
prove that frogs and chicks may develop in unfertilised
egos,! and goes on to assure us that a ‘‘souffle” (the
“aura seminalis” of Swammerdam, the “subtle and
vivifick efluvium” of Grew) passes along the lax tissues
of the style, thence by the tracheal vessels to the pla-
centas, and so by the umbilical cords to each little
germ or embryo (which, it is to be remarked, Vaillant
supposes to be ready-formed before fertilisation), “ qui
présente sa radicule au trou de la coque de l’ceuf avec
lequel s’abouche le cordon umbilical, pour recevoir de
ce cordon et le souffle et la nourriture” (p. 20).

No words are required to show the futility of such an
explanation as this, and we shall not discuss further
‘Vaillant’s contribution to the sexual theory of plants.
It is better worth while to note that explanations very

1The passage in Malpighi will be found in the De Formatione Pulli in Ovo,
p. 2. I find no mention here of frogs, nor any hint that the egg of the chick
was unfertilised.

EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 345

like his were long in favour. Grew, Leeuwenhoek
and above all Camerarius had thrown out hints which
ought to have prompted an inquiry into the changes
which take place in pollen-grains lodged on a stigma;
the figures of Malpighi ought to have prompted further
inquiry into the origin and growth of the plant-embryo,
but neither clue was followed up. Botanists chose
rather to discuss the hasty surmises of Grew and
Malpighi than to strain their eyes over lenses. Not
many years after the publication of the Dzscours the
dominance of Linnzan botany cast all close study of
plant-physiology into the shade. During the next
half-century and more Needham, Adanson, Mirbel and
others went on discussing the aura, and the entry of
fertilising particles by the base of the ovule, and the
possibility of embryo-formation without previous fertili-
sation. Pyrame de Candolle’ in 1827 was not much
better instructed than Vaillant in 1718. At last a
new tide of inquiry set in; old theories were critically
revised ; better microscopes were introduced; and by
1846 Amici and Robert Brown had demonstrated that
pollen-grains send out tubes, which enter the micropyles
of ovules, and set up the changes which convert simple
egg-cells into multicellular embryos. But between 1682
or 1694 and 1823 hardly any progress was made towards
an improved knowledge of the process of fertilisation.
Philip Miller, gardener to the Apothecaries’ Society,
relates some experiments of his own in his Gardeners’
and Florists’ Dictionary (1724). The only new point
of interest is that having removed the anthers from
tulips, he saw a bee fly into the flower and deposit

1Organographie Végétale, Vol. I, p. 468.

2See article on ‘“‘Generation.” Sachs quotes the fuller but much later
article in the Gardeners’ Dictionary, 6th edition, 1752.

346 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

pollen on the stigma, verifying the fact by his
microscope.

Linnzus appears as a public advocate of the sexual
theory of the flower in his Fundamenta Botanica (1736).
Long before this Camerarius had demonstrated that the
anthers are necessary to the production of fertile seeds,
while Ray and Bradley had remarked the possible trans-
ference of pollen by wind and the formation of hybrids
by cross-fertilisation. More recently Miller, as we have
seen, had noticed the transference of pollen by bees.
All that Linnzeus was able to do was to collect more
instances of the same kind, to discuss the question at
every opportunity, and to employ the number and
disposition of the stamens and styles in his Sexual
System, whose validity turned, not upon the functions
of the parts of the flower, but solely upon the natural-
ness of the resulting groups.?

THE PARTS OF THE FLOWER.

Theophrastus, and still more distinctly the revivers of
botany, were led by their descriptions to discover that
precise language was necessary if ambiguity and verbiage
were to be avoided. Glossaries of technical terms appear
as early as the Historia Stirpiwm of Fuchs (1542).
Spigel (Isagoge in rem herbarium, 1606), Jung (Isagoge
phytoscopica, a posthumous work, 1679), Linnzeus
(Fundamenta Botanica, 1736 and Philosophia Botanica,
1751) and the elder De Candolle (Théorie Elémentaire
de la Botanique, 2nd. ed., 1819) each in his own genera-
tion extended and rectified the language of botany.

Flower. It would not be easy to find earlier than

18achs, History of Botany, English translation, p. 82, &c. It may be fair to
quote also the different opinion of Axell (in Hermann Miiller’s Fertilisation of
Flowers, Eng. trans., p. 27) that ‘‘the masterly collection of proofs of the
sexuality of plants given by Linnzus” did much to settle the question.

EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 347

the year 1600 a collective name for all the parts which
are concerned with seed-production. Spigel enumerates
them as we should now do, except that he includes the
flower-stalk. Hitherto neither the calyx nor the im-
mature seed-vessel was usually reckoned part of the
flower, which (as with Theophrastus) meant corolla and
nothing more.

Calyx and sepal. The word calyx, which is found
in Aristotle, Theophrastus and Pliny, long denoted any
cup-like structure which enclosed seeds; a pod, for
example, might be called a calyx. Fuchs calls it a kind
of bag which encloses first the flower and afterwards the
seeds—a definition which excludes the deciduous calyx.
Valerius Cordus, like Fuchs, hesitated to give this name
to a whorl of separate leaves. As late as 1720 we find
Pontedera, in his Anthologia, explaining that the calyx
belongs rather to the fruit than to the flower, which is
just what Theophrastus would have said. It was only
by degrees that shape, texture and duration were
ignored, and that the term became purely morpholo-
gical. Sepal was introduced by Necker (1790); before
that date the divisions of the calyx were called leaves,
foliola, &e.

Corolla and petal. What we now call corolla bore
in ancient times the name of flower, which included
sometimes the stamens and styles, but not knowingly
the immature fruit. Corolla seems to have been intro-
duced by Linnzeus; De Candolle indeed traces it to
Tournefort, but I have been unable to verify this
statement. Petal, which is merely an adaptation of
a Greek word for leaf; goes back to Fabius Columna
(1592), but long after this date it continued to be called
folium.

Stamen, anther and filament. Ancient botanists

348 LINNZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

bestowed little attention upon the parts which occupy
the centre of a flower, rarely distinguishing the stamens
from the styles, but grouping all as capillamenta or
flocct. Pliny, as we have seen, distinguishes in one
place the pelum (some read filum) from the stamens.
He also uses the word apex (hat, cap, diadem) for the
anther. Fuchs (1542) adopts Pliny’s name of apices,
but calls both the anther-bearing filament and the style
stamens, according to ancient usage. Ray (1660) gives
anthers as another name for apices. The seventeenth
century name for stamens (attire) which is used by
Grew, &c. has not lasted. Linnzeus (1736) has filament
and anther. Pollen is perhaps first mentioned by
Valerius Cordus' as a yellow dust with which the
anthers are besprinkled; the dust of lily-anthers he
calls a fine powder of rusty colour (rubiginosus pulvius-
culus). Pollen is used by Pliny and other ancients as a
name for fine meal.

Pistil, carpel, ovary, style and stigma. Bock (1552)
studied the large flower of the lily, and described its
parts. In the bilberry he names the pistil from its
resemblance to an apothecary’s pestle, perhaps taking
the hint from Pliny (see above).? Jung and many of
his successors call the divisions of a pistil either pzstils
or styles; carpelles had come into use by 1819, the
date of De Candolle’s Théorie Hlémentaire, ed. 2.
Linnzeus adopted or introduced the physiological division
of the pistil into ovary or germen, style and stigma.

Superior and inferior ovaries were distinguished by
Theophrastus, though of course he did not use these
words; monecious and diecious were proposed by

1In Gesner’s volume of botanical treatises, 1561.

2In his New Kreutterbuch (1546) Bock calls the pistil schwengelin (clapper),
or zdpfchen (pin or peg).

EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 349

Linneeus ; hypogyrious, perigynous and epigynous by
A. L. de Jussieu (1789), though he was by no means
the first to note the differences of structure which they
denote. Pontedera (1720) uses monopetalous, poly-
petalous and the like; whether he invented or adopted
them he does not say.

HISTORICAL TABLE OF BOTANICAL TERMS (FLOWER).

CALYX. Greek and Roman writers; the term is not defined,
nor used with precision.

Corotta. Linneus, Fundamenta Botanica, p. 12 (1736).

PISTIL. Bock, Stirpium ... libri tres, p. 974 (1552). Compare
New Kreutterbuch, III, xiv (1546). Pliny’s pilum
may have suggested the word pistillum to Bock.

SEPAL, Necker, Element. Bot., Coroll. p. 18 (1790) and
Phytologie Philosophique (1790).

PETAL. Fabius Columna, Phytobasanos, p. 1, 1592, and later
works by the same author.

STAMEN. Pliny.

STYLE. Spigel, Isagoge, pp. 14, 15.

FinaMEnt. Linneus, Fundamenta Botanica (1736). Jung (1679)
uses pediculus, and is followed by Ray.

ANTHER. Called apex in Pliny, Fuchs, &c. Ray (Cat. Plant.
Camb., p. 56) uses anthera after Jung, whose Phyto-
scopia had been communicated to him in MS. by
Samuel Hartlib. Capitulum is another name for
anther, used by Jung, and after him by Ray.

OVARY. Vaillant, Discours sur la Structure des Fleurs, 1718.
CARPEL. De Candolle, A. P., Théorie Elém., 2nd. ed., pt. III
(1819).

The last hundred and fifty years have made a new
thing of the study of the flower. Koélreuter (1761-6)
threw a beam of steady light upon the process of fertili-
sation, the production of hybrids by the union of distinct
species, and the co-operation of insects with flowering
plants.1 Christian Konrad Sprengel (1793) opened up

1For Kélreuter’s researches we must refer the reader to the pretty full
summary given in Sachs’ History of Botany, Bk. III, ch. i.

350 LINNZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

that inquiry into the sexual economy of the flower
which has since been pursued with such remarkable
success by Darwin and Hermann Miiller. In the early
nineteenth century microscopes, far better and more
convenient than any which Malpighi or Swammerdam
could command, made it possible to examine in detail
the internal changes which constitute the process of
fertilisation, and to follow the growth of the most
delicate embryonic tissues." We are now fortunate
enough to possess something that really deserves to be
called a morphology and physiology of the flower, based
upon elaborate investigations, not only of a multitude
of flowering plants, but of the principal types of the
higher cryptogams as well. Even the remote history of
the flowering plant, which long seemed to be unsearch-
able, has been illustrated by the close study of coal-
measure fossils, and with such effect that the descent of
the flowering plant from cryptogamic ancestors, which
had been inferred from facts of recent structure, can be
verified at some points by the production of long-extinct
transitional forms.’ These vast extensions of knowledge,
which cause modern botany to differ so conspicuously
from the botany known to the ancients or the revivers
of science, may be said to take origin from the experi-
ments of Camerarius. Then and not till then was it
definitely proved that stamen and pistil co-operate to
produce the embryo, and a clear reason could at last be
given for the long-familiar fact that the fruit is in all
higher plants preceded by a flower. What the supposed
flowers and fruits of ferns, mosses and seaweeds might
be, and whether cryptogams really produce anything

1 Amici in 1823 observed the pollen-tube emitted from the pollen-grain ;
in 1830 he discovered its entry into the micropyle.

2 Oliver and Scott, Phil. Trans., 1904.

BERNARD AND A. L. DE JUSSIEU 351

which can properly be called by such names as these,
were questions that could only be seriously attacked in
the middle of the nineteenth century.

BERNARD DE JUSSIEU
1699-1777

ANTOINE LAURENT DE JUSSIEU

1748-1836

A. L. de Jussieu. Examen de la Famille des Renoncules. Mém. Acad. Sci.,
1773, pp. 214-240 (pub. 1777).
Exposition d’un nouvel ordre de Plantes. Mém. Acad. Sci., 1774, pp.
175-197 (pub. 1778).
Genera Plantarum secundum Ordines Naturales disposita. 8vo.
Paris. 1789.

Five Jussieus are known to botanical history, and
two of the five were among the first naturalists of their
age. The founder of this botanical succession was
Antoine de Jussieu (1686-1758), a pupil of Tournefort
and professor at the Jardin du Roi.

Bernard de Jussieu, younger brother of Antoine,
showed more original power than any other of the five.
He was able to extend Trembley’s discovery of the
branching animal, Hydra, by producing examples of
permanent animal-colonies (Aleyonium, Tubipora, Flustra,
Cellepora), all of which he had examined on the coast of
Normandy ; he was one of the first to pronounce that
corals are animals and not plants; and he devised an
arrangement of the plants in the botanic garden of the
Petit Trianon at Versailles, which is reckoned as an
epoch in the history of botany. He was remarkable for

1The eight Bernouillis, all mathematicians, and the four Cassinis, who one
after another superintended the Paris Observatory, furnish parallel cases of
hereditary scientific genius.

352 LINNZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

modesty and unselfishness. When his discoveries were
appropriated by others, he refused to make any reclama-
tion, asking, What does it signify who gets the credit,
so long as the truth becomes known? He thought
himself unworthy to hold the professorship of botany
vacant by his brother’s death, and recommended Lemon-
nier for the post. He asked nothing and got nothing
from the court for his work at Versailles, not even out-
of-pocket expenses.

A. L. de Jussieu was nephew to the three last. He
was trained by his uncle Bernard, whose example he
strove to follow, and whose teachings he expounded.

The list of orders or families of flowering plants which
Bernard de Jussieu had drawn up while laying out the
garden at Versailles in 1759, was printed for the first
time by A. L. de Jussieu in his Genera Plantarum.
Sixty-one families are here enumerated, of which about
forty have endured with some rectification. No charac-
ters are given, and the families are not grouped under
wider headings. In preparing this arrangement Jussieu
was able to make as much use as he pleased of Linneeus’
Fragmenta Method: Naturalis, published in the Classes
Plantarum (1738), as well as of the Philosophia
Botanica (1751), and of conversations with Linnzeus
in Paris (1738, when the two botanists were much
together).’ It is equally possible that Linneeus may
have picked up hints from Jussieu during his stay in
Paris, and that his Pragmenta was all the better for
them. Jussieu’s general arrangement is :—Water-plants
(Naiades) ; monocotyledons with inferior ovary ; mono-
cotyledons with superior ovary; dicotyledons (taking
first the monopetalous families with inferior ovary,

1B, de Jussieu’s “Eloge” (Hist. Acad. Sci., 1777) says that he founded his
families on the Fragmenta of Linneus. Prof. Vines (Clark Fasciculus, 1909)
thinks that Ray’s Methodus was the foundation of Jussieu’s Natural System.

BERNARD AND A. L. DE JUSSIEU 353

and ending with the diclinous and apetalous genera) ;
conifers. If we find Bernard de Jussieu’s grouping
unnatural in many places, we must not fail to remember
how difficult was his task. Down to the present time
no really satisfactory grouping and succession of the
families of flowering plants has been discovered. While
botanists agree in recognising many affinities between
particular families, they differ much as to the larger
groups, and only the following points can be considered
as universally accepted :—(1) that the flowering plants
divide naturally into Gymnosperms and Angiosperms ;
(2) that the Gymnosperms should come next to the
Vascular Cryptogams; (3) that the Angiosperms divide
naturally into Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons.

Bernard de Jussieu’s method of arrangement may be
called experimental. Starting with no formed plan,
except to keep the monocotyledons and dicotyledons
distinct, he tried and tried. again to group his genera
so as to avoid unnatural associations and successions,
until at last he hit upon an arrangement which he
thought tolerable.

A. L. de Jussieu on the Ranunculus Family.1 The
explanations which Bernard de Jussieu’s modesty would
not allow him to give were supplied to some extent by
his nephew, who began by taking a single family as his
text, the large and varied family of the Ranunculacee.
He points out briefly the difference between an artificial
and a natural method. The framer of an artificial
method chooses for himself a single organ, from which
all his class-characters are taken. This apparently
precise method is liable to the objection that accidental
(we should now say, adaptive) modification in the organ
selected may cause the plant to be referred to a wrong

1 Fxamen de la Famille des Renoncules.
Z

354 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

class; thus kindred plants may be separated, or plants
of no near kindred united. Tournefort was led by his
artificial system to unite the cinquefoil with Ranunculus,
and to separate columbine. Linnzeus was led in the
same way to unite Colchicum with sorrel, and to
separate Persicaria. The natural system, though less
facile than an artificial one, avoids these blots; all the
organs of the flower are taken into account, and no
genera are separated by an arbitrary definition. A. L.
de Jussieu proceeds to investigate the Ranunculaceze. In
order to complete his task he would have to determine
the characters of the family, and also to fix its place in
the series ; but for the present he limits himself to the
discovery of the characters, which are first enumerated
without selection. Some are constant, others more or
less variable ; each may occur by itself in other families,
but the combination of all is peculiar to Ranunculacez,
and constitutes its essential character. The characters
of the different families are not always drawn, Jussieu
goes on to explain, from the same organs, though logic
would seem to require that this rule should be strictly
observed."

Some few families of flowering plants, Jussieu says,
are so plainly marked out in nature that they are

1So Linneus :—‘‘ Que in uno genere ad Genus stabiliendum valent, minime
idem in altero necessario prestant.” (Phil. Bot., §169.) ‘‘The conflict
between natural classification and logic is apparent only. Logicians say that
in classifying books, for instance, you may take any property you please,
subject, size, &c., as the basis of your arrangement, but having made your
choice, you must adhere to it for all divisions of the same rank. Naturalists
seem to say something different, for they are agreed that what they call
‘single-character classifications,’ in which one property is adhered to through-
out, are unnatural. The fact is that a natural classification always rests
upon one and the same property, viz. affinity, i.e. relative nearness of descent
from some common ancestor. Every natural classification, like every logical
classification, proceeds upon a single basis, and the failure of the single-character
classifications is due to their replacing affinity by some definition.” (Miall,
Hist. of Biology, p. 126.)

BERNARD AND A. L. DE JUSSIEU 355

recognised by every botanist; among these are the
Labiates, Umbelliferee and Leguminosee. He adds the
instructive remark that these families, which are so easy
to define, are hard to divide, the agreement of the whole
family in many particulars of structure leaving only
minute differences for the subdivisions. He shows that
in Ranunculaceze the separation of the sepals and petals,
the insertion of the stamens and the attachment of
the anther-lobes are constant. On the other hand,
Ranunculaceze vary in the character of the stem (her-
baceous or woody), in the insertion of the leaves (alter-
nate or opposite), in the number and function of the
petals, in the number of the stamens, in the number and
cohesion of the carpels, and in the number of seeds to a
earpel. The fruit may be an achene, a follicle, a capsule,
or a berry. Doubtful cases must be decided by the
ageregate of all the characters. Anomalous Ranun-
culaceze suggest to Jussieu instructive reflections. Thus
Acteea and Podophyllum have single carpels which ripen
to berries, yet they are undoubtedly near of kin to the
Ranunculacez ; whether they are to be placed in that
family, or in the allied family of the berberries, signifies
little in Jussieu’s opinion ; they make a transition from
one family to another, and such transitions, which are
faults in an artificial system, are merits in a natural
system.! Elsewhere he traces a transition in the petals
of different Ranunculacee.? Such reasoning, supported
by well-chosen instances, justifies the respect in which
the Examen has been held by subsequent generations of
botanists.

In his Exposition A. L. de Jussieu gives a table of

1“ Cette transition, qui seroit regardée comme un défaut dans les systémes,
est une perfection dans l’ordre naturel.” Hxamen, p. 236.

2 Hxamen, pp. 225-6.

356 LINNAUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

his system, of which we need say no more than that the
principles which had guided the constitution of the
families are thrown over in the larger groups; the suc-
cession of the families is therefore to a great extent
arbitrary.

Until the philosophy of classification was remodelled
by Darwin it was always thought that the younger
Jussieu had grasped for the first time relations which
his uncle had but dimly perceived ; a different conclusion
may force itself upon some modern biologists. Bernard
de Jussieu may have been really the wiser man of the
two, for in the presence of extremely complex facts and
relations he simply laboured at a natural arrangement of
living and growing plants, adding no word of theory,
“parce qu'il s'est cru trop peu avancé dans la science.”
A. L. de Jussieu must needs expound, and his exposi-
tions are laid down with emphasis, especially in the
introduction to his Genera Plantarum, a later work
than either the Examen or the Exposition. If his
positions seem open to criticism, we shall not judge
them severely when we recollect that the Genera
Plantarum is now over a hundred and twenty years
old.

A. L. de Jussieu believed it possible to distinguish
beforehand primary and essential characters, constant in
a high degree, from such as are only available for minor
divisions. He tells us that the embryo is the most
essential part of the plant, all the other parts serving
to produce, nourish, or defend it, existing for this end
only, and withering as soon as it is accomplished ; that
we must accordingly seek the characters of the primary
divisions of plants in the embryo; that other essential
characters must be drawn from organs necessary to life
and the reproduction of the species, while external

BERNARD AND A. L. DE JUSSIEU 357

characters will only be available for subordinate
divisions.!

Augustin Pyrame de Candolle? subsequently drew
the important distinction between ancestral (“ morpho-
logical”) and adaptive (‘ physiological”) characters,
though it would be too much to expect that he should
have applied his own distinction with perfect con-
sistency. Like all botanists before 1859, he was still
inclined to believe that primary divisions must rest
upon characters of great physiological importance, an
assumption which, plausible as it is, further experience
has much impaired. We now believe that no line can
be drawn between the two sets of characters; those
which are now ancestral were once adaptive, a sufficient
reason for dropping De Candolle’s terms, ‘“ morpho-
logical” and “ physiological,” which imply a difference
in kind.

The thirteenth chapter of Darwin’s Origin of Species
has enlarged and rectified the teaching of both A. L. de
Jussieu and Pyrame de Candolle by demonstrating :—
That valuable characters cannot be indicated beforehand
by any rules; that the physiological importance of a
structure is no measure of its systematic value, which
depends entirely upon the probability of its unbroken
transmission from a remote ancestor; that embryonic
characters are not always distinctive of large groups;
that characters drawn from the heart, which A. L. de
Jussieu believed to be of the first importance in the
classification of vertebrates, worms and insects, are of
uncertain, sometimes of very little, value in those
groups; that some external characters (the trimerous
flowers and parallel venation of monocotyledons, the

1 Hxposition, p. 183. 2 Théorie Hlémentaire de la botanique, 2nd ed., 1819.
3Sachs’ History of Botany, Eng. trans., pp. 128, 135.

358 LINNZUS AND THE JUSSIEUS

hair of mammals, the feathers of birds) are distinctive
of classes ; that “no character must be supposed to be
natural until it is proved to be so”;1 that “the less
any part of the organisation is concerned with special
habits the more important it becomes for classification.”?

Sachs* considers that the chief merit of A. L. de
Jussieu consists in this, that he first assigned characters
to the families, as Caspar Bauhin had done for the
species, and Tournefort for the genera.

The Genera Plantarum was little read for many
years, and no systematic work or elementary treatise
adopted the new method until De Candolle introduced
it into his text-books. The arrangement of flowering
plants proposed by Jussieu and De Candolle still
prevails in English-speaking countries.

The Genera Plantarum of A. L. de Jussieu marks
the fullest development which the natural system of
flowering plants attained during the period covered by
this volume. We have seen the humble beginnings of
that natural system in the herbals of Brunfels, Bock and
Fuchs (or still earlier in the Greek botanists), and its
partial effacement by the Sexual System of Linneus ;
the hidden germ, which had been kept alive by the
Fragmenta of Linneus himself and the experimental
arrangement of Bernard de Jussieu at Versailles, now
starts into vigorous growth once more.

In spite of the inevitable difficulties which arise from
vast gaps in the historical succession of the types,
botanists are steadily labouring at the improvement of
system without misgiving. The phylogenetic discoveries
of the last half-century have convinced them that the
method of the Jussieus is both valid and indispensable.

1 Waterhouse, quoted in the Origin of Species.
2 Origin of Species, chap. xiii.
8 Hist. of Botany, English trans., p. 116.

SECTION IX. BUFFON

GEORGES LOUIS LECLERC, COMTE DE BUFFON
17071-1788

Histoire Naturelle, générale et particuliére, avec la, description du Cabinet du
Roi. 44 vols. 4to. Paris, 1749-1804. The last eight vols. were posthumous.
Burron was born at Montbard, near Dijon, in the
same year with Linnzus, and educated at the Jesuit
college of Dijon. As a youth of nineteen he travelled
in France and Italy, in the company of the young
Duke of Kingston and his tutor, who had struck up
an acquaintance with him during a stay at Dijon. At
the age of twenty-five he came into the enjoyment of
his mother’s fortune, and from that time made it a rule
to divide his time between Montbard and Paris. He
became known to the members of the Académie des
Sciences as a mathematician and as the translator of
Hales’ Vegetable Staticks (1735) and Newton’s Fluaions
(1740). To the same early period (1732-1749) belong

1The following coincidences and successions will help the memory of his-

torical students :—

Linnzus and Buffon were born within four months of each other (1707).

Linneus, Bernard de Jussieu, Haller, Voltaire and Rousseau died within
eight months of each other (Nov. 1777-July, 1778).

The year of Bacon’s death was that of Boyle’s birth (‘‘Sol occubuit, nox
nulla secuta est”), and the year of Galileo’s death that of Newton’s birth.
Napoleon, Wellington, Cuvier and Humboldt were all born in 1769.

Harvey was the pupil of Fabricius, Fabricius of Fallopius, Fallopius of
Vesalius,

360 BUFFON

three papers on the strength of wood. The most inter-
esting general result was that the strength of wood is
increased by barking before the tree is felled. In 1738
he paid a three months’ visit to England, and with this,
unfortunately for his scientific career, his travels came
to an end; it would have enlarged and corrected his
knowledge of zoology and geology, had he been able to
examine other countries in a leisurely way. At this
time his attention had not been specially directed
towards natural history, for which he might seem to
have been physically disqualified; he was short-
sighted in a measure which made the close ex-
amination of plants and animals tedious. This was
his only bodily defect, for he was tall, strong, and
handsome.

In 1747, not long before the first three volumes of
the Histoire Naturelle appeared, Buffon published an
account of his experiments on burning glasses. The
ancient story that Archimedes had set the Roman fleet
on fire by means of burning glasses was thought highly
improbable ; Descartes had said that the thing could
not be done. Buffon resolved to try how near he
could come to performing such a feat. He set up a
compound mirror, consisting of 168 silvered glass plates,
each 8 inches by 4 inches, and capable of separate
adjustment. With this he concentrated the sun’s rays,
so that he was able to kindle wood at a distance of
200 feet, and to melt metals at a distance of from 25 to
40 feet.' He next turned his thoughts to the concentra-

1 Hist. Nat., Suppt., Vol. I, pp. 399-516. ‘‘The story that Archimedes set
the Roman ships on fire by an arrangement of burning-glasses or concave
mirrors is not found in any authority earlier than Lucian” (T. L. Heath,
Works of Archimedes, p. xxi, 1897). For the alleged repetition of a similar
feat by Proclus in the time of Justinian, see Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,
chap. xl. Gibbon says that the silence of Polybius, Plutarch and Livy is,
decisive in the one case; that of all sixth-century historians in the other.

BUFFON 361

tion of the sun’s rays by means of lenses. There was in
his day a very narrow limit to the size of lenses of
glass; even if large lenses could have been cast, they
must have been enormously heavy, and would have
intercepted much light. Buffon proposed to replace
the solid lenses by stepped lenses (lentilles @ échelons),
in which the necessary deflection of the rays was to be
effected by concentric glass rings, ground out of a single
piece of glass, but he was unable to get his invention
practically tried. Condorcet,' in 1773, showed that the
stepped lens might be built up of separate rings;
Fresnel, in 1822, actually constructed such lenses, and
used them to condense the beams of light emitted from
the Tour de Cordouan. It is well known that modern
lighthouses are furnished with powerful lenses, built up
either of rings or prisms.

THE JARDIN DES PLANTES

A Jardin du Roi was founded in 1626 as a small
garden of medicinal plants. The king’s physician, Guy
de la Brosse, gave up for its use his own house and
grounds, which stood just outside the city. For the
first hundred years the garden achieved no fame. The
physicians who were one after another called upon to
manage it were busy with more remunerative employ-
ments, and the reputation of the garden had sunk very
low when, in 1732, the Académie des Sciences advised
that a practical man of science should be put at its
head. Du Fay, whose experiments on vitreous and
sulphurous or resinous electricity, and on the conduc-
tion of electricity through wet string for a distance of
over 1200 feet, are still remembered, and whom Fonten-
elle commemorates as the only man who had ever

1 Bloge de Buffon, Paris edition of 1804, p, 35.

362 BUFFON

presented to the Academy of Sciences memoirs worthy
of publication in each of its six departments, was
appointed, and was busy with extensions and plans
when he was struck with mortal illness. Buffon aspired
to the post of Director, soon to be vacant. His qualifi-
cations were not exactly those which the Jardin du Roi
might have seemed to require, for he was above all
things a mechanic and a mathematician. But he already
belonged to the Académie, having been received six
years before as a member of the class of Mechanics,’ and
Du Fay’s appointment furnished a good precedent for
the selection of a man who was practised in experi-
mental science, without being a professed naturalist.
Buffon was also known to possess some skill in garden-
ing, and he was ready to promise great things for the
future, not nearly so much, however, as he actually
performed. His friends used all their diligence on his
behalf, and the chemist Hellot even brought a warm
recommendation of Buffon to be signed by the dying
Du Fay. They carried their point, and on August Ist,
1739, Buffon was made intendant of the Jardin du
Roi. ‘‘ Que dites-vous de l’aventure de Buffon ?” wrote
President De Brosses to a friend. ‘Je ne sache pas
avoir eu de plus grande joie que celle que m’a causée sa
bonne fortune, quand je songe au plaisir que lui a fait
ce Jardin du Roi. Combien nous en avons parlé en-
semble! Combien il l’a souhaité! Et combien il était
peu probable qu'il leit jamais, a lage qu’avait Du
Fay !”

The Jardin du Roi, when Buffon became intendant,
covered only a small part of the present Jardin des
Plantes. An old country-house lodged the herbarium,
the pharmacy, and the collections of Réaumur. Green-

1In 1739 he was exchanged into the class of Botany.

BUFFON 363

houses had just been erected, which Réaumur called
“ magnifiques.” ?

Buffon was not long in turning out the physicians.
He extended the grounds by purchasing (with his own
money) the Clos Patouillet and the glebe of the Abbaye
de St. Victor. His 12,000 livres of annual pay were
swallowed up in the cost of the gardens, and at his
death the King owed him no less than 600,000 livres.
He kept up a correspondence with Frenchmen resident
in distant countries, who sent him cases of live plants,
rocks, and minerals. When he bought for the Cabinet
du Roi a collection which the King’s treasury could not
afford to pay for, he only said :—‘‘ Que voulez-vous? Le
Jardin du Roi est mon fils ainé.” He refused to make
a private collection, and the visitor to Montbard was
astonished to find no museum there.

Buffon was always ready to spend his money, not only
on the Jardin, but on his workmen and all who needed
help. The iron gates and palisades of the Jardin were
supplied from his own forges at Buffon, near Montbard,
no doubt at his own expense; they helped to keep his
people employed. At Montbard he laid out great sums
upon a terraced garden, though the soil was ungrateful.
It was useless to point out that the expenditure was
not likely to be remunerative; the reply was :—‘‘ Mes
jardins ne sont qu’un prétexte pour faire l’auméne.”

Buffon had meant that his son, “ Buffonet,” as he
called him, should become intendant at the Jardin ; with
this view he had sent him with Lamarck to visit the
chief botanical gardens of Europe. But Buffonet had
no great talent, and a more adroit man, the Comte de la

1Qne of them is figured in a vignette prefixed to the fourth volume of his
Mémoires des Insectes. They superseded older ones built by the celebrated
physician and botanist, Fagon.

364 BUFFON

Billarderie d’Angiviller, who by his own confession had
only “les connaissances superficielles d’un homme du
monde,” got the promise of the succession. In a letter
to the disappointed father, he described himself as “ un
homme d’état supérieur 4 celui des sgavans.” The
Comte not only procured the next appointment, but
also the survivorship for his brother. It will save
reference to another page if we briefly relate in this
place all that remains to be said about the history of
the Jardin. Buffon died in 1788, and Billarderie
d’Angiviller became intendant. He knew nothing
about the work and left everything to his subordinates.
The expenses soon exceeded any sum which the treasury,
loaded with debt, could bear. D’Angiviller resigned,’
and in 1792 Bernardin de St. Pierre, the author of Paul
et Virginie, was appointed in his place. Strange to
say, he proved himself a good administrator, and did all
that could be done at a time when the government of
France was disorganised. It was he who founded the
menagerie at the Jardin by removing thither six animals
which had been kept in the park of Versailles, adding
such others as happened to be in the market; it was
he, too, who made a beginning with the library of the
Museum. But in a short time the post of intendant
was suppressed, and in 1793 the Jardin was completely
reconstituted, in the agony, be it observed, of the Terror
and the revolutionary war. Twelve new professorships
were founded, with the condition that the lectures should
be free. Daubenton, A. de Jussieu, Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
Faujas-Saint-Fond, and Lamarck were on the first staff.
This reconstruction brings us within sight of the time

1D’Angiviller turns up again in the Diary of Crabb Robinson. In 1807 his
tall person, very dignified manners, rank, and advanced age combined to
render him an object of universal interest at Altona.

BUFFON 365

when Cuvier was to raise the Jardin and the Museum to
the height of their renown.

PLAN OF THE HISTOIRE NATURELLE

A man of great ambition, practised in literary work
and conscious of literary gifts, but deficient in the
ordinary acquirements of the working naturalist, was
beyond all others the one to signalise his reign at the
Jardin du Roi by some great literary enterprise. Short
sight and a memory which did not long retain minutie
made it impossible for Buffon to study natural history
as Ray, Linnezeus and Réaumur had studied it. “J’ai la
vue courte,” he said, “‘j’ai appris trois fois la botanique,
et je l’ai oubliée de méme.” System he looked down
upon, at least when he began his labours, as a mere
matter of words. We all know what a dog is; why
should Linnzus persuade us to call it Canis familiaris ?

Buffon was forty-two when the first volumes of the
Ehstowre Naturelle appeared (1749), and had already
spent ten years upon his preparations for the work.

DAUBENTON AND OTHER HELPERS

He was glad to reinforce his theories and descriptions
by the systematic knowledge of a professed anatomist,
and found the collaborator whom he needed in Louis
Daubenton, a young doctor of Montbard (1716-1799).
For the early volumes of the Histoire Naturelle
Daubenton dissected and described nearly two hundred
mammals, but after the completion of the fifteen
volumes assigned to the quadrupeds he wrote no more.
A popular edition was put forth in which Daubenton’s
contributions were omitted ; Daubenton took this as a
slight, and withdrew. He served for many years as
keeper of the cabinet of Natural History at the Jardin

366 BUFFON

des Plantes, and continued to study, write, and lecture
with unwearied diligence until he died in extreme old
age. Guénau de Montbéliard and his wife were also
employed upon the Histoire Naturelle. Guénau was
thought to have caught the trick of his master’s style,
and some of his descriptions, such as the peacock and
the swan, were greatly admired as the work of Buffon
himself. After Guénau the Abbé Bexon became a prin-
cipal contributor to the Birds. Barthélemy Faujas-
Saint-Fond (1741-1819) had travelled and written on
extinct volcanoes, and to him the minerals were en-
trusted.
BUFFON AT WORK

There have been accounts of Buffon’s mode of work at
Montbard which have caught the fancy of the public.
Everyone has heard, for instance, how he dressed himself
as if for a visit of ceremony before sitting down to write.
Buffon himself tells us of his “ voiite antique,” a vaulted
room in a tower at Montbard, which was approached by
a succession of garden terraces. Standing at a desk ina
nearly empty room he meditated and wrote. He also
worked in a more comfortable room in the chateau. His
daily allowance of literary labour was eight or nine hours.
He made a point of destroying his notes and extracts
as soon as they were done with, for fear of becoming
buried beneath his papers (a dangerous practice !). Order
and temperance were the rule of his life’ Mallet du
Pan, who had seen him at Montbard in his later years,
gives his own impression. “ Buffon vit absolument en
philosophe ; il est juste sans étre généreux, et toute sa
conduite est calquée sur la raison ; il aime Vordre, il en
met partout.”

Buffon took no notice of criticism. ‘Il faut laisser la

1 Humbert, Mémoires, p. 27.

BUFFON 367

calomnie retomber sur elle-méme.” There were criticisms
which were not calumnies, but his pride treated all alike
with silence.

No corrected editions of the Histoire Naturelle were
issued, though many new impressions were called for.
Buffon was unwilling to impair the value of early copies,
perhaps also unwilling to let it appear what extensive
correction was needed. He now and then restated with
fuller knowledge and greater care doctrines which he had
outgrown, or put forth disquisitions which contradicted
his early opinions. These revised and improved chapters
were issued as Supplements.

BUFFON AND THE SORBONNE

The fourth volume of the Histoire Naturelle contains
a curious correspondence, dated 1751, between Buffon
and the doctors of the Sorbonne. The faculty of theology
had marked fourteen passages as reprehensible, but
Buffon, having heard of their proceedings, made haste
to declare his submission. Some of the passages seem
innocent enough to the non-professional reader, such as
his prediction that the present continents will in time
be submerged, and that new continents will rise from
beneath the sea; or that the sun will probably cool
down and cease to shine. Again, the Sorbonne need
not have shuddered to hear that a comet striking the
sun may have detached planets, which continued to
revolve in the same direction as the sun, or that the
earth was once liquid by reason of intense heat. Most
of the propositions relate to abstract points of philosophy,
and might well have been allowed to pass, whether theo-
logically sound or not.

The college of the Sorbonne, founded in 1257, became
affiliated to the university of Paris, whose theological

368 BUFFON

faculty it long controlled. The theological censorship
of books was entrusted to it by the crown, for the papal
Index was never recognised in France. Pascal’s Lettres
Provinciales struck a heavy blow at the prestige of the
Sorbonne ; all Paris laughed at the faculty which found
it “bien plus aisé de trouver des moines que des raisons.”
In Buffon’s day the weight of the Sorbonne had still
further declined. Marmontel in 1767 was able to defy
with impunity its censure of the tolerant views which
he had put forth in Bélisazre. But an author who was
not only in the king’s service (this consideration muzzled
neither Marmontel nor Voltaire), but pledged to the
production of a long series of costly volumes, could not
prudently quarrel with the Sorbonne, which might get
the license for printing revoked.

Buffon declared that his hypotheses about the forma-
tion of planets were pure philosophical suppositions, that
he had no intention of contradicting Scripture, and that
some of the suspected passages were capable of a harm-
less meaning. He undertook to publish his recantation
at the first opportunity, and was spared all further pro-
ceedings. The passages censured were never cancelled.
Intolerance breeds insincerity, and Buffon thought it
fair to treat the theological tribunals as a man treats the
brambles in which he has become entangled, gently
disengaging himself to avoid getting torn. ‘“ Buffon
sort d'ici,” said the President De Brosses; ‘il m’a
donné la clef de son quatrieme volume, sur la maniére
dont doivent étre entendues les choses dites pour la
Sorbonne.” In a letter of 1779 Buffon speaks of the
foolish explanation which he had been forced to sign
nearly thirty years before. The time was then close at
hand when the clergy in their turn were to endure a
rigorous and unjust persecution.

BUFFON 369

_ Though Buffon often dined with Diderot, D’Alembert
and Helvétius in Quesnay’s rooms at Versailles, he took
care not to be reckoned in what he called ‘l’escadron
encyclopédique.” ?

Descartes, Voltaire and Buffon had all been educated
by the Jesuits—a proof that early education may be
powerless to restrain speculation.

BUFFON’S LAST YEARS

After his sixtieth year was passed Buffon’s life was
marked by sorrows such as commonly befall those to
whom, in Juvenal’s phrase, the over-indulgent gods
have granted length of days. He married late (at forty-
five), but twenty years before his own death he lost his
wife, to whom he had been deeply attached. From
about this time a painful and hopeless disease embittered
his existence. His son, “ Buffonet,” having been dis-
appointed of the succession to the Jardin du Roi, entered
the army, and served under the Duke of Orleans, after-
wards Philippe Egalité. The duke corrupted Buffonet’s
young wife, who became notorious to all France. Even
the Histoire Naturelle brought many anxieties; col-
laborators often failed to satisfy him; the labour of
correspondence became oppressive; and Buffon was
gradually forced to admit that his great work was
destined to remain a gigantic fragment. The endless
detail of the animal kingdom surprised and disheartened
him. In 1780 he complains to the Abbé Bexon of “ces
tristes oiseaux d’eau, dont on ne sait que dire, et dont la
multitude est accablante.” He found only one remedy
—to toil on. His last piece of writing was the account
of the magnet, which he had specially reserved for his
own pen, and on which he bestowed great pains.

1 Marmontel, Mémoires, liv. v.
2A

370 BUFFON

All the honours that can be bestowed upon a success-
ful author were showered down upon Buffon. He was
ennobled by the King; in 1753 he was admitted to the
Académie Francaise without a canvass. Naturalists,
with eyes focussed upon the details of their science,
might perhaps withhold their approval, but some of
the most eminent men in Europe, famous writers and
members of learned academies, helped to spread his
praise.

He died on April 16th, 1788. On the 11th of
December there was a solemn meeting of the Academy,
when Vicq d’Azyr was chosen in his room, and delivered
an éloge which was thought worthy of the great natu-
ralist. This was almost the last occasion on which an
orator dared to speak of the king of France as the head
of an enlightened people, the benefactor and restorer of
the State. Six months later the Bastille was stormed,
and some five years afterwards the orator himself lay on
his death-bed, fancying in his delirium that he saw
Bailly and Lavoisier summoning him to mount the
scaffold. Buffon was at least spared the horrors of
the Revolution and the execution of his only son as
an aristocrat.

Buffon on System *

At the outset of his undertaking Buffon made a par-
ticularly grave mistake. He attacked, needlessly and
ignorantly, two naturalists whom he ought to have
conciliated, for each, in a way of his own, was labouring
diligently and successfully to promote Buffon’s cause.
They were not men to be trampled upon with impunity ;
the one who had most ground of complaint was Linnzus;
the other, who is dismissed with a few contemptuous

1Premier Discours. De la maniére d’étudier et de traiter l’Histoire
Naturelle.

BUFFON 371

phrases, was Réaumur. Nowhere does Buffon expose
his own weakness more irremediably than in carefully
studied passages which were meant to wound.

His first sentences set forth the difficulty of dealing
with the infinite variety of natural objects. ‘On doit
done commencer par voir beaucoup et revoir souvent.”
The chain of nature, descending by imperceptible
gradations from man to the simplest mineral, has of
course to be mentioned; it was thought in 1749 to
be an obvious fact. Then he opens his attack on the
systematists.

He has no suspicion that natural groups of animals
and plants may exist, groups so plainly marked that
‘complete unanimity respecting them is attainable. Ray
and Linnzeus had already founded groups which are still
recognised ; both had dimly perceived the relation which
we call affinity, and had sought to give effect to it.
But to Buffon the only ground for preferring one group-
ing to another is convenience. All groups are mere
abstractions; ‘il n’existe réellement dans la Nature
que les individus; les genres, les ordres, et les classes
n’existent que dans notre imagination.”* In some philo-
sophical sense this may be true, but for the zoologist to
treat mammals and birds as imaginary groups is much
as if the politician were to treat Englishmen and French-
men as imaginary groups. To Buffon the arrangement
of animals and plants was a problem of the same kind
as the arrangement of the books in a library. All groups
are as arbitrary as the alphabet, and he prefers that
arrangement, whatever it is, which is most serviceable
to a popular writer. The search for a perfect system is,
he says, as chimerical as the search for the philosopher's

1Ray had said ithe same thing long before; it had been a maxim of
certain schools of philosophy.

372 BUFFON

stone; in each case the seekers for what does not exist
may find no end of useful things.

The ancients, especially Aristotle and Pliny, were, he
thinks, far better qualified to write upon natural history
than any of the moderns. They did not trouble them-
selves about useless insects whose mancuvres gratify
some modern observers (this is meant for Réaumur), nor
count the stamens of plants which possess no medicinal
virtues. It would be better to do as Pliny did, and
simply name in alphabetical order at the end of the
series all the plants which have no useful properties.

Tournefort’s classification of plants was, he thinks,
good enough. Linnzeus, who needlessly tried to upset
Tournefort, had mixed up trees and herbs, and put into
the same class the mulberry and the nettle, the tulip
and the barberry. All was now drawn out in Greek,
and the names of all the plants were changed. One
could not stir without the microscope; size, shape, and
all evident parts of the plant were ignored ; classification
had become a matter of counting stamens. What were
we to do if the plant had no stamens, or if the stamens
varied in number? Species, he goes on, should not be
distinguished except where the differences are quite
obvious, and every obvious difference should be denoted
by an adjective. He repudiates binary nomenclature,
and likes every animal and plant to have a single name
of its own, a vernacular and intelligible name.

The Linnean classification of animals pleases him no
better than that of the plants. He complains that the
serpents, shells, and crustaceans are not ranked as
primary divisions. The number of the classes should be
increased. Instead of unfamiliar groups, which take no
note of place of abode, he would retain the obvious
divisions of quadrupeds living on the earth, birds living

BUFFON 373

in the air, reptiles, amphibians living in both air and
water ; cetacean, oviparous and boneless fishes, crus-
taceans, shells, land insects, marine insects, freshwater
insects, &c. He thinks it absurd to put the domesticated
dog into the order Fer, whose name implies that it
consists of wild animals. It is better to call an ass an
ass, and a cat a cat, than to pretend that the ass is a
horse and the cat a lynx.

Had Buffon kept his satire for what was really objec-
tionable in the Linnean classification, he would have
shown himself a more useful critic. There was fair
ground for complaint against any system of Mammalia
which put the bats with the monkeys, mixed up the
elephant, walrus, manatee, and edentates in one order ;
the carnivores, insectivores, and opossums in another.
Nor were the Linnean classes and orders of plants less
open to reproach. But Buffon in his wrath condemns
the whole without discrimination ; his objections, if they
could be maintained, would destroy, not the Linnean
arrangement only, but every other scientific arrangement
that has been proposed.

I do not know that Linneus ever mentions the name
of Buffon in his treatises. In his fragmentary Auto-
biography he says that Buffon was at last obliged,
nolens volens, to arrange the plants in the Jardin du
Roi according to the Linnean system. According to
De Blainville,’ Buffon never allowed the Linnean system
to show itself in the garden, and only consented to
allow the Linnean names to be used on condition that

1 Hist. des Sciences de l’Organisation, Vol. II, p. 386n. It appears from
A. L. de Jussieu’s Haposition d’un nouvel ordre de Plantes (Mém. Acad. Sci.,
1774, p. 177) that the system of Tournefort was retained in the Jardin du Roi
until 1773, when A. L. de Jussieu’s system was substituted, both the binary
nomenclature of Linnzus and the natural families of the Jussieus being then

adopted.

374 BUFFON

they were to be painted on the under side of the
labels.

Then Buffon sketches such a natural history as he
would himself approve. Knowledge is divisible into
Civil History and Natural History.2 Natural History
should mainly consist of descriptions of natural objects,
not minute, not formal; they should above all be read-
able. The grouping should be such as would suggest
itself to the first human observer, and the succession
should be determined by the closeness of the relation to
man. It is a mistake to let the description of the zebra,
which is foreign and unfamiliar, follow that of so well-
known and useful an animal as the horse; the dog,
which we are accustomed to see running at the horse’s
heels, might much more fitly come in this place. The
natural and ordinary way of looking at things is the
best.

As he continued his descriptions Buffon discovered
that all this was impracticable. In his chapter on the
Degeneration of Animals he stated his views on the
arrangement of the quadrupeds, without a hint that he
had ever discussed the question before, and put forth as
his own a classification which is substantially Ray’s.’
Every useful group which it contains is taken from
Ray’s Synopsis Methodica Animalium Quadrupedum.
Ray’s mistakes are left uncorrected, but Buffon adds a
few of his own. The Cetacea are still excluded from
the Mammalia; the hippopotamus is still separated from
the swine; Buffon cannot tell, any more than Ray,

1The story goes that Linneus revenged himself upon Buffon by naming
the toad Bufonia, which he never did.

2 This division is much older than Buffon ; it occurs for instance in Bacon’s
De Augmentis.

STt is not, however, to be forgotten that he had given an account of Ray’s
classification of quadrupeds in his fourth volume (Discours sur la nature des
animaux).

BUFFON 375

where to place the edentates, moles, shrews, or bats.
He has only two suggestions of his own to propose,
both of them unfortunate. He puts together the por-
cupine and the hedgehog, for no better reason than that
both are defended by prickles, and he unites the otter,
beaver, desman, and seal into a new amphibious family.
When he comes to the Quadrumana, we find him work-
ing at system just like any of the naturalists whom he
had derided.

Sainte Beuve said very truly that Buffon was “un
grand esprit éducable.” He was ever learning, all
through his fifty years of writing and his eighty years of
living, and one can only blame him for not having had
the candour to admit his early mistakes, or the grace to
thank those who had helped him to correct them.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES

Buffon had not proceeded very far with his descrip-
tions of quadrupeds before the ass and its resemblance
to the horse raised some important questions in his mind.
We might feel disposed to call the ass an inferior horse,
like a horse in general structure, but with differences
which are perhaps due to climate or food. Horses are
more variable in colour than asses—an indication, he
remarks, that their domestication is of more ancient
date." Wild horses may exhibit some of the characters
of the ass, such as the low stature, the greyish brown
colour, the tail tufted at the end, and the black stripe
across the shoulders. Are the two animals allied in
blood? Is it proper to make them, as Linnzeus does,
two species of the same genus, or have they not been

1 Buffon neglects the possibility that more pains may have been taken with
the selection of horses for breeding.

376 BUFFON

distinct from the beginning?’ Is there blood-relation-
ship between quadrupeds, birds, reptiles and fishes? Are
there true families among plants and animals? If so,
had each of these families a common ancestor? Was
there a common ancestor to all animals ??

The questions are daring, but the answers which
Buffon gave in 1749 are orthodox enough even for the
Sorbonne. Revelation teaches us, he says, that all
animals sprang fully formed from the Creator’s hands.
What they once were that their descendants are now.
From the time of Aristotle no new species has been
known to make its appearance. If the ass was produced
by the degeneration of the horse, why do we not. find
stages intermediate between the two? Buffon defines a
species as a succession of similar and interfertile indi-
viduals, excluding by the word semilar the possibility of
progressive change. But by the time that his descriptions
of quadrupeds were drawing to a close, he was ready to
treat families and genera as souches, stocks from which
living branches had sprung. All his two hundred
quadrupeds might have been derived, he now thought,
from about forty original forms,*® and still stronger
opinions might be quoted from his later volumes.

What Buffon came at length to see distinctly amounts

1«T?ane et le cheval viennent-ils done originairement de la méme souche ’
Sont-ils, comme le disent les nomenclateurs, de la méme famille? Ou ne sont-
ils pas, et n’ont-ils pas toujours été, des animaux différens?”

2«<Si Pon admet une fois qu’il y ait des familles dans les plantes et dans les
animaux, que l’ane soit de la famille du cheval, et qu’il n’en différe que parce
qu'il a dégénéré, on pourra dire également que le singe est de la famille de
VYhomme, que c’est un homme dégénéré, que Vhomme et le singe ont eu une
origine commune comme le cheval et l’Ane, que chaque famille, tant dans les
animaux que dans les végétaux, n’a eu qu’une seule souche, et méme que tous
les animaux sont venus d’un seul animal, qui, dans la succession des temps,
a produit, en se perfectionnant et en dégénérant, toutes les races des autres
animaux.” Tom. IV.

3 «<Dégénération des Animaux,” Hist. Nat., Vol. XIV, p. 374, &o.

BUFFON 377

to this :—(1) that a common plan of structure pervades
such vertebrates as he was acquainted with ;+ (2) that
some animals reputed to be of different species may
closely agree in structure, and be interfertile, at least
for one generation. His degeneration means simply
progressive change (of any kind).

He believed (after his first confident statement to the
contrary) in the filiation of species, and was ever inclined
to extend it farther. He has much to say about the
origin of new species by degeneration, but neither this
nor any other hypothesis enables him to throw a clear
light upon the process of derivation of distinct species
from a common ancestor.

A hybridising expervment.—More interesting than
all Buffon’s speculations about hybridisation is an experi-
ment which, though unsuccessful, was well worth making.
A captive she-wolf, two or three months old, was shut up
in a courtyard with a mastiff of the same age, and Buffon
vainly hoped to get a hybrid litter. The fellow-prisoners,
at first friendly, came to dislike one another extremely ;
in the end the dog killed the wolf, and his own temper
had grown so fierce that a few days later he too had to be
destroyed. Captive dog-foxes were tested with a suc-
cession of bitches, but the repugnance of the animals
was not to be overcome.” A negative result was
apparently well made out. Buffon applied it, with
great satisfaction no doubt, to the refutation of Lin-
neeus, who had placed the dog, wolf, and fox in the
same genus (Canis). It is needless to enter into the
question between Buffon and Linnzeus, for a few years

1 Buffon thought he saw in all animals a common plan of structure, but this
is explained by his ignorance of all but vertebrates. Réaumur, in the Lettres
& un Américain, which bore the name of the Abbé de Lignac, had no difficulty
in pointing out animals which have no skeleton, no heart, &c.

2 Hist. Nat., Vol. V, p. 210.

378 BUFFON

later the Marquis de Spontin supplied Buffon with the
particulars of a case in which a she-wolf had produced a
litter of which a dog was the father.’

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS

The description of the lion in the Histowre Naturelle
(Vol. IX) led Buffon to remark that the so-called lion
of settlers in South America (the puma) was not the
lion of the Old World, but an animal peculiar to the
New World, as are most others found there. To support
this statement, he prepared and published in the same
volume lists of mammals (a) peculiar to the Old World,
(6) peculiar to the New World, (c) common to both.
From these lists he drew the interesting general con-
clusion that no large and conspicuous tropical animal is
shared by the eastern and western hemispheres. With
these chapters’ the connected discussion of the geo-
graphical distribution of animals may be said to begin ;
at least I am not aware of earlier remarks which are
more than statements of bare facts, such as the brief
notes contained in the Systema Nature of Linneus.

The species common to the two great land-masses are
not found, says Buffon, in the southern, the equatorial,
or the north temperate regions, but only in the extreme
north,> where alone two continents approach one
another and make it possible for animals to cross over.

He makes bold to say* that birds and fishes, being

1Suppt., III, p. 10, and VII, p. 161; Geoffroy, Ann. du Muséum, Vol. IV,

p. 102, gives another instance. For more recent evidence see Darwin’s
Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Chap. I.

2 Vol. IX, pp. 97-128 (1761), and Vol. XIV (1766).

3 Linneus, speaking in Biberg’s name, had already remarked that the species
of plants common to the Old and the New World are all of northern range
(Amen. Acad., Vol. II, 1751).

4 Hist. Nat., Vol. IX, p. 106 (1761).

BUFFON 379

able to cross at pleasure from one continent to the
other, cannot be characteristic of either—a striking
example of speculation without facts !

Buffon’s information respecting the distribution of
animals was of course extremely defective. The voyages
of Captain Cook, the founding of the British Empire in
India, the occupation of all parts of America by civilised
races, the colonisation of Australia, New Zealand, and
South Africa, events which have enormously extended
geographical and zoological knowledge, were still in the
future when these chapters were written (1761 and 1766).
The Himalayas were still unexplored, and the Andes
were believed to be the highest mountains on the sur-
face of the globe. Zoological system was so imperfect
that Linneeus himself had no special orders of elephants,
edentates, or marsupials (Systema Nature, 12th ed.,
1766). Buffon had been strongly inclined to reject
genera, families and orders altogether, but this was a
freak of his own, which he was now ready to relinquish.
He counted some two hundred species of mammals, of
which about seventy were found in the New World.
No naturalist suspected that the continents are divisible
into six or seven distinct zoological regions. It was
still possible to maintain that animals spring from the
soil; according to Buffon, the American continent, un-
drained and drenched with rain, could not develope the
“germes” or “principes actifs” of the larger quadrupeds.
There was no science of paleontology, and only one
indubitable example of an extinct animal (the mammoth)
could be quoted.

He is inclined to believe that in the New World nature
is less energetic, less varied, and less powerful; the
largest quadrupeds are inferior to the largest of the old
world; man himself is less numerous and less enter-

380 BUFFON

prising. Only such low things as spiders, insects, frogs,
and toads thrive best in America. He assures us, with-
out offering any proof, that all animals which have been
introduced by man, or have migrated into America,
have diminished in size. Then comes the pourquot, for
Buffon seems to have forgotten his own maxim (p. 386).
He attributes to the humidity and low temperature of
America the poor development of its quadrupeds and
the rank growth of its reptiles and insects. The humidity
and low temperature he explains by the shape of the
American continent, the direction of its mountain-
chains, the longer duration of its submergence, the
greater antiquity of its high land, and the more recent
formation of its plains. It is true that the largest living
mammals of America are small when compared with the
largest of the Old World, but Buffon’s explanation is
demolished by the gigantic extinct animals of America
(elephants, Uintatherium, Megatherium, Diplodocus), as
Darwin ' remarked.

BUFFON’S ORGANIC MOLECULES

Everybody knows that a tree produces a great number
of parts (buds and seeds), each of which is able to pro-
duce a new tree. Buffon carries the analysis still further
(in his imagination), and arrives at what he calls the
“organic molecules” as the smallest dwing units of a
tree or any other organism. He had some ground for
believing in the material existence of such organic mole-
cules, though he does not profess to have.seen them
with his own eyes. While the first three volumes of
the Histoire Naturelle were in hand he had been reading
Leeuwenhoek, and had there found such things as the

1 Naturalist’s Voyage, chap. viii.

BUFFON 381

cells of which the tissues of animals and plants are
composed, in addition to corpuscles which circulate in
the blood, sperms, and bacteria. Out of these he seems
to have framed his organic molecules, concerning which
he proceeds to lay down a number of confident state-
ments. He tells us that they are primitive and incor-
ruptible ; that they exist both in plants and in animals;
that they travel about the organism, but may collect in
special reservoirs. Nutrition and reproduction are due
to their combination ; the destruction of the organism
may result from their dissolution; they explain the
regeneration of lost parts.1 They are plentiful in the
chyle and other products of digestion, in the seeds of
plants, in the eggs and fertilising fluids of animals,
and in the interstices of the teeth (this last points to
Leeuwenhoek’s bacteria). They increase in number and
activity under the influence of light, a remark which
may have been suggested by observation of the green
growth which forms in vessels exposed to the sun’s
rays. The moving particles seen in animal infusions are
organic molecules set free by the decay of the tissues.
Fermentation is perhaps set up by the activity of the
same molecules. Infusions of potent drugs swarm with
the molecules, which appear far sooner than in ordinary
infusions. The poison of vipers depends upon molecules
in an exalted state.

New individuals originate in masses of organic mole-
cules, and take their shape from moulds existing in the
parent. These moulds determine not only the external
form, but also the internal structure of the new indi-
vidual, a statement which has its mechanical difficulties.
We perceive at length that Buffon’s moulds are purely

1Réaumur had forty years earlier maintained that when a crayfish loses a
limb, the egg or germ of a new one germinates and developes (Mém. Acad.
Set., 1712).

382 BUFFON

philosophical ; the whole body or any part of it may
be such a mould.? He boldly affirms that new plants
and animals can arise by the fortuitous association of
his organic molecules. Mushrooms, internal parasites,
and earthworms are, he says, generated spontaneously.”

This theory of organic molecules undoubtedly contains
hints for a true doctrine of cells. Buffon seems to teach
that both animals and plants are built up of cell-units ;
that the cells may exist as separate organisms, or move
about within some more complex organism, or be com-
bined into tissues, or contain smaller organised units,
such as we now call plastids. He is within sight of the
truth that both germ and sperm, when reduced to their
lowest terms, are cells. It might seem necessary to give
Buffon handsome credit for such anticipations as these,
but we are checked by reflecting (1) that he did not
discover or observe for himself any of the cell-structures
which he mentions; and (2) that Buffon’s theory, in
the completest form which it ever attained, was quite
as likely to lead a student wrong as to lead him right.
He never attempted to verify or correct his specula-
tions by such experiments as Spallanzani devised—
experiments which demolished Buffon’s supposed proofs
of spontaneous generation.

There is a strong, but merely superficial resemblance
between Buffon’s organic molecules and Darwin’s gem-
mules, and Darwin found whole pages of Buffon laughably
like his own.°

1 Hist. Nat., Vol. II, pp. 41-2. * Hist. Nat., Vol. IV, p. 335, &c.
3 Hist. Nat., Vol. II, pp. 322, &c.

BUFFON 383

BUFFON ON FOSSIL REMAINS

In Buffon’s earlier days it was not yet universally
admitted that the earth contains the remains of animals
which are now altogether extinct. Some, and among
these was Buffon himself, thought it possible that
ammonites might still survive in the depths of the
sea. Less than a century before it had even been
gravely maintained that fossils are not necessarily the
remains of animals or plants which once lived, but the
first volume of the Histovre Naturelle shows that
common-sense had at last settled this question in spite
of the philosophy of the schools. Buffon there explains
that fossil shells may retain the colouring and texture
of recent shells; some are bored by whelks; old and
young are often found together ; the fossil teeth of fishes
often show signs of wear.’

In his ninth volume (1761) he was able to declare
that “le prodigieux mahmout (mammoth) que nous
avons jugé six fois au moins plus grand que le plus
fort éléphant, n’existe plus nulle part” (p. 126); but,
in spite of his exaggerated notion of its superior size, he
was not certain that it was specifically distinct from the
existing elephants. A few years later he was able to
quote American mastodons as indubitably extinct,
and was by this time convinced that some mollusca
(ammonites, orthoceratites, belemnites), as well as some
fishes, had died out altogether.”

SPECULATION ON THE GROWTH OF STAGS’ HORNS
Buffon’s propensity to unguarded speculation often
leads him into absurdity, as for example when he
attempts to explain the growth of a stag’s horns. He
1 Hist. Nat., Vol. I, pp. 291-292. 2 Hist. Nat., Suppt., Tom. V (1778).

384 BUFFON

tells us confidently, but without pretence of experi-
mental proof, that the growth of horns in the stag is
due to an accumulation of organic molecules derived
from its food. The lichen on which the reindeer feeds
is, he makes bold to say, a richer food than the leaves,
bark, and buds which nourish the stag; hence the
more abundant secretion of horn in the reindeer. The
organic matter is not, he tells us, perfectly assimilated
in deer, and this explains why their horns resemble the
branches of trees in form and texture; they are vege-
table structures grafted upon the bodies of animals.
He suggests that the periodical shedding of the horns is
due to their vegetable origin ; it is analogous to the fall
of a ripe fruit. Ancient naturalists had believed that
ivy will grow round the horns of a living stag, and
Buffon thinks that if the fact were established, it would
constitute an interesting proof of the fundamental
identity of stags’ horns and wood. He accepts without
misgiving the old belief that the beaver gets his scaly
tail by feeding on fishes (this is mentioned in Harrison’s
Description of Britayne, 1577, and doubtless in earlier
books also).

THE RANGE OF BUFFON’S STUDIES

Buffon did more than fix the attention of his genera-
tion upon “les idées générales sur les animaux,” and
“Vhistoire de homme,” though these were his chief
themes; he has left the marks of his powerful mind
upon such problems as the amelioration of wool and the
strength of wooden beams, as well as upon problems
which have no direct reference to natural history. It was
Buffon who explained to the world what was meant by
the expectation of life at different ages, and how it was

BUFFON 385

ascertained.’ Again it was Buffon who first propounded
and solved the celebrated mathematical needle-problem.?
Upon a surface ruled with equidistant and parallel
straight lines a rod, such as a needle, which must be
shorter than the distance between the lines, is thrown
at random ; what is the probability that it will intersect
one of the lines? Buffon shows that the answer involves
a number which expresses, among many other things,
the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter,
and that this ratio may be experimentally determined
by a long series of trials with the needle. He announced,
not quite for the first time, that the stone axes which
were popularly called “ pierres de foudre,” or “ thunder-
stones,” were the work of early races of men.’ These
are but specimens of contributions to knowledge which
told with great effect upon that class of alert and
speculative men, of whom Erasmus Darwin is a familiar
example.

BUFFON’S MAXIMS, DEFINITIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS

Some of Buffon’s forcible sentences have become
universally current, like the happiest phrases of national
poets. How many writers have either quoted or adapted
his description of the horse :—‘“‘ La plus noble conquéte
que l’homme ait jamais faite, &c.!” Who does not
know his definition of genius :—“ Le génie n'est qu’une
plus grande aptitude 4 la patience”?* ‘“‘Le style est
Vhomme méme” is not less familiar.” Another maxim

1 Hist, Nat., Suppl., Vol. IV, pp. 46-148 (1777).

2 Ibid., pp. 100-3.

8 Ibid., Suppl., Vol. V, p. 225 (1778).

4 Quoted in this form by Hérault de Séchelles. Buffon’s published definition
is very different :—‘‘ La vue immédiate de esprit.”

5 Some give it in this form :—‘‘ Le style est de Vhomme méme,” and declare

that the other version misrepresents Buffon’s meaning (Vapereau’s Diction-
2B

386 BUFFON

which has proved serviceable is this :—‘“‘ Le but de la
philosophie n’est pas de connoiftre le pourquot, mais le
comment des choses.”’ Some few will find the follow-
ing sentence full of meaning :—‘‘Tout sujet est un,
et quelque vaste qu'il soit, il peut étre renfermé
dans un seul discours.”* Even Universal History may
be so handled as to leave a simple and powerful impres-
sion, if there is a Montesquieu or a Bossuet to handle it.
Professor Huxley used to say that the principles of
sound Geology were embodied in the words :—“ Pour
juger de ce qui est arrivé, et méme de ce qui arrivera,
nous n’avons qu’aé examiner ce qui arrive.” *

The reader who wishes to see Buffon at his best may
turn to his description of the horse and stag, which are
praised by Sainte-Beuve,* or to those of the horse and
camel, which are praised by Gibbon.’ A. P. de Candolle
(Mémoires et souvenirs, p. 83) reports, but not of course
from personal knowledge, that Buffon liked to find out
which of his descriptions a new acquaintance admired
most, and that those pleased him best who hesitated
between the ass and the horse.

ESTIMATE OF BUFFON

During Bufton’s lifetime his merit as a naturalist was
hotly debated. It was admitted that he was no botanist ;

naire, art. Buffon). But the ‘“ Discours 4 Académie Frangaise,” printed in
Hist. Nat., Vol. IV, omits the de. Whatever authority may exist for the
insertion of the particle, its omission can hardly be wrong.

1 Hist Nat., Vol. V, p. 104.

2«< Discours a Académie,” Hist. Nat., Suppt., Vol. IV, p. 5.

3 Théorie dela Yerre, Hist. Nat., Vol. I.

*Causeries du Lundi, Vol. IV. Sainte-Beuve originally added the swan,
but afterwards became convinced that ‘‘le Cygne tant vanté pourrait étre du
pur Bexon.” Buffon’s letter to Bexon, Dec. 24, 1779, puts the matter beyond
question; he speaks of ‘‘ votre beau Cygne.”

5«< Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable articles of the Horse
and the Camel in the Natural History of M. de Buffon,” Decline and Fall,
note to chap. 50.

BUFFON 387

was he really a zoologist? Linnzeus never quoted him,
or seemed to know that he existed. Réaumur instigated
the anonymous Lettres &@ un Américain, in which the
Abbé de Lignac treated Buffon with scorn. Linnzus
and Réaumur had personal reasons for disliking Buffon,
but the adverse opinion of judges so eminent, however
it might be explained, was damaging in a high degree.
The majority of professed naturalists in France, Germany,
and England held that no loftiness of thought and
diction, no liveliness in description, no startling theories
of creation could atone for Buffon’s contempt of system,
or for the blunders which disfigured his pages. Many
contrasted the accuracy of Daubenton with the careless-
ness of Buffon, or said with D’Alembert that Buffon was
“‘le grand phrasier, le roi des phrasiers.”

With the general reading public the case was very
different. Buffon’s handsome and costly volumes sold
in large editions throughout his long life. The Histovre
Naturelle was not only bought but read, and all those
passages which a thoughtful reader, ignorant of zoological
details, could understand were studied and remembered.
Men of letters, such as Diderot and Gibbon, spread his
fame. Gray thought that his general view of the surface
of the earth and of the nations which occupy it was the
best epitome of geography which he had ever met with.
What Buffon had to say about the expectation of human
life at different ages, about the duration of life in animals
and its ratio to the duration of the period of growth,
about the history of the earth and the history of con-
tinents, entered into the common stock of knowledge.

Having got the ear of mankind, Buffon so used his
opportunity as to heighten their interest in natural
history. During the first half of the eighteenth century

science had already made good its claim to the attention
2B2

388 BUFFON

of cultivated people, but the only science which counted
so far was the science of Descartes and Newton. Réaumur,
and still more emphatically Buffon, showed that the
problems of life are not less interesting nor less im-
portant than the mechanics of the universe. Buffon’s
animated descriptions and bold speculations did much
to prepare men’s minds for Cuvier and Darwin, for
geology, paleontology, and the theory of descent.?

Buffon was far in advance of his own generation in
teaching that all geological phenomena can be explained
by the long-continued action of ordinary causes. Cuvier’s
Revolutions de la surface du Globe was written expressly
to refute this doctrine.

It is almost unnecessary to say that the Histoire
Naturelle swarms with errors. All comprehensive
works in natural science are found to do so, when they
come to be examined by the light of a later age. Buffon
is only to be blamed for presumptuous and wanton
mistakes, of which there is no lack.

It is now more than a century since Buffon laid down
his pen for ever, and we are able in some degree to
estimate the value of his labours. He left behind him
thirty-six volumes? of the Histowre Naturelle, enriched
by a profusion of plates, as well as by the notes of skilful
collaborators. The work formed a vast, though most
incomplete encyclopzedia of zoology, at once fuller and
more entertaining than any which the world had ever
seen. At Buffon’s death the mammals, birds, and
minerals had been dealt with, the reptiles had been
begun, and preparations had been made for the volumes
on fishes. The original plan extended to the whole

1Erasmus Darwin was among those who drew ideas from the Histoire
Naturelle, whether to the gain of science or not may be a question.

2 Not counting the two volumes on Reptiles, by Lacépéde, the second of
which appeared just after Buffon’s death.

BUFFON 389

realm of nature—animals, plants, minerals, and the
theory of the earth ; fifty years of unparalleled industry
had been unable to cover such a programme. Buffon’s
death and the Revolution which immediately followed
were heavy blows to the undertaking, and though the
publication was resumed in quieter times, the Histoire
Naturelle became antiquated long before the end was in
sight.

Cuvier * has said that the history of quadrupeds is the
most complete, the history of birds the most agreeable,
the history of minerals the most defective. In the
twentieth century the student of scientific history finds
it worth while to read all that Buffon has to say about
familiar quadrupeds, the dissertations, and also the
Epoques de la Nature, which exhibits him as a founder
of Geology.

Buffon is intellectually the man of his century, the
century of Montesquieu and Gibbon. He is enlightened
and rational, free from the bonds of theology and
traditional philosophy and verbal learning. It was his
delight to account for everything. Madame Neckar
says that he was ready to account for every word in his
own writings down to the smallest particle. Facts he
values as the source of ideas (‘‘rassemblons des faits
pour nous donner les idées”?), but he perceived very
inadequately how minute and toilsome must be the
collection of the facts if false ideas are to be avoided.

Fontenelle, Réaumur and Buffon rank, as popularisers
of science, among the civilising influences of the eigh-
teenth century ; Voltaire may perhaps be allowed a place
among them, not for the merit and originality of his
scientific work, but for its effect ; Cuvier and Humboldt
continue the tradition. Buffon has of course lost much

1 Biographie Universelle. 2 Nat. Hist., Vol. H, p. 18.

390 BUFFON

of his former vogue, by reason of the great bulk of his
Natural History and the lowered credit both of his
facts and his speculations. But, like Réaumur and
Cuvier, he still finds readers, and few scientific writers
of his age are so well known. His maxim :—‘les
ouvrages bien écrits seront les seuls qui passeront 4
la postérité” does not by any means always hold good
of scientific works, but even among these “les ouvrages
bien écrits” have one chance more of escaping
oblivion.

1789 AND LATER

From 1789 we look forward to an age comparatively
familiar to the modern naturalist. Cuvier, a Wurtem-
bergerof twenty, who had studied in the Caroline Academy
at Stuttgard, was in 1789 acquainting himself with the
marine zoology of Normandy; in 1795 he was to be
summoned to Paris, there to enter upon the palzeonto-
logical studies which are now reckoned his most valuable
contributions to science. Humboldt, born in the same
year with Cuvier, was to sail for South America in 1799.
Robert Brown, the great founder of nineteenth century
botany, was born in 1773; Baer in 1792; Darwin in
1809; Pasteur in 1822.

The nineteenth century has surpassed all predecessors
in the extent and importance of its scientific achieve-
ment. Which of the branches of science thus enlarged
and renovated has done most for the welfare of mankind
is a question on which opinion is divided. Some of us
attach the highest importance to those sciences whose
industrial applications are most evident; others think
that mathematics is yet more important, because more
fundamental. Biologists have something to urge in

1789 AND LATER 391

support of their own conviction that no science concerns
mankind so deeply as that, which since 1789 and
especially since 1859 has thrown a flood of new light
upon the infinitely varied forms and activities of Life.

There is perhaps no more hopeful augury of the future
of Biology than the increased and ever-increasing sobriety
of biological speculation. Bold hypotheses are no doubt
framed as profusely as ever, but the speculator is made
to feel that he must not set them forth in print until he
can support them adequately.

INDEX

Acosta, C., 71, 73.

—, J. de, 64.

Adanson, 335.

Affinity (of plants), 19, 24; Linnzus
on, 328.

Agatharcides, 52.

Albin’s figures of insects, 253.

Aldrovandi, 30, 49, 50, 85, 104, 107,
108.

Alexandria, school of, 5.

America, exploration of, 59; Buffon
on animals of, 379.

Amici on fertilisation of flowers, 345.

snebas Roesel on, 216.

itates Academice, 322.
tee Leeuwenhoek, Swammer-
dam, Poupart and Méry on, 213;

Meéry, 235 ; Poupart, 234.

Ant-eater, Oviedo on, 62.

Ants, Leeuwenhoek on, 208.

Aphids, Bonnet on, 286; Leeu-
wenhoek, 206; Réaumur, 269;
Trembley, 287.

Aquatic beetles, Roesel on, 296.

Argonne, Noel, 221.

Aristotle, 2; classification of, 49; on
elephant and camel, 51; on bees,
88, 91, 92; on migration of birds,
106 ; on development of chick, 159 ;
on breathing of insects, 160 n.; on
tongue of frog, 234.n.; on date-palm,
337.

Artedi, 49, 311, 315.

Asia, exploration of, 70.

Augustine, St., 65.

Bacon, Roger, 10; on lenses, 136.
Bacteria, Leeuwenhoek on, 220.
Baer, 31; on Hydra, 283.

Baker on Volvox, 217.
Bartholomew of England, 10.
Bauhin, Caspar, 114-5.

—, John, 45, 114-5.

Bean-seed, Grew on, 167.

Bees, Butler on, 87; Hill, 87; Pic-
torius, 87; Milton, 89, 186 n.;
Swammerdam, 184-194; Aristotle,
Virgil and Pliny, 193; Leeuwen-
hoek, 207; Réaumur, 271-4; cells
of, 235, 273.

—and pollen, Grew on, 172; Miller,
340, 345.

— (wild), Réaumur on, 274.

Beetles (aquatic), Roesel on, 296.

Belon, 40, 54, 104, 112.

Bernouillis, the eight, 351 n.

Biological speculation, 391.

Biology since 1789, 390.

—, relative importance of, 391.

Bird, respiratory movements of
(Méry), 232.

Birds, English names of, 104; gizzards
of (Borelli and Redi), 228; Turner
on, 77; Willughby and Ray, 103.

Bison, Herberstein on, 58.

Blood, circulation of, 203.

—, corpuscles of, Malpighi, 163;
Swammerdam, 198; Leeuwenhoek,
204,

Bock (Tragus), 19, 20, 39.

Boerhaave, 180, 315.

Bonnet, 284.

Borelli, 146, 228.

Botanic gardens (16th century), 15.

Breydenbach, 54.

Brown, Robert, 75, 335; on fertilisa-
tion of flowers, 345.

Browne, Sir T., 105, 119.

Brunfels, 17, 23.

Budding, animals which increase by,
275.

Buds, Grew on, 170.

Buffon, 75, 124, 359-390.

‘* Buffonet,” 363, 369, 370.

Busbecq, 55, 56, 72, 74.

Butler, Charles, 87.

Caius, 30, 79.

INDEX

Camerarius’ experiments on sexes of
plants, 339.

Capillary circulation discovered by
au maakt, 161; Leeuwenhoek on,

Cassini, 271.

Cassinis, the four, 351 n.

Caterpillars, Réaumur on, 254, 265.

Cells of plants, Hooke on, 141; Mal-
pighi, 153 ; Grew, 168.

Cesalpini, 27, 36, 115.

Charlemagne, cartularies of, 8.

a development of, Malpighi on,

Cilia on gills of Mytilus and oyster,
or lea on, 211; Van Heide,

Clusius, 13, 35, 45, 72, 104.

Comparative anatomists, early, 224.

alia 63, 68; Leeuwenhoek on,

—, German, Frisch on, 243.

Columbus, 59.

Compound Eye, Hooke on, 143, 187;
Swammerdam, 187; Leeuwenhoek,
188, 205.

Corals, Marsigli on, 276; Peysonnel,
276; Réaumur, 276.

Cordus, Euricius, 12, 15 n.

—, Valerius, 15n., 28, 30.

a Geoffroy on, 235; Roesel,

Creeper, Turner on, 78.
Satine lens, Leeuwenhoek on,
5.
Ctesias, 51.
Cuckoo-spit, 117.
Cuvier, 335; in 1789, 390; on Lin-
neus, 329; on Réaumur, 244.

Darwin, Charles, 75, 357.

Date-palm, Herodotus, Aristotle,
Theophrastus and Pliny on, 337;
Ray, 338.

Daubenton, 365.

De Candolle, A. P., 335, 345, 357.

Decay of nature, 6.

De Geer, 277, 305.

Development of chick, Malpighi on,
158; Fabricius, 159.

— tadpole, Swammerdam on, 197;
Leeuwenhoek, 203.

Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons,
L’Obel on, 34; Malpighi, 121;
Ray, 121, 122, 129.

Dioscorides, 5, 14, 16, 18, 23, 25.

Dispersal of fruits and seeds, Grew
on, 170; Roesel, 299; Linnzus,
322.

Dodo, 74.

Dogs of Britain, Caius on, 79.

393

Du Fay, 361.
Duverney, 231.
Dzierzon on hive-bee, 184.

Earle on English names of plants, 8.

Earthworm, anatomy of, 238; her-
maphroditism of, 236.

Eel, life-history of, Aristotle and
Redi on, 228.

Egg-parasites, Lister on, 132 ; Swam-
merdam, 194.

Eggs, artificial incubation of, 98;

éaumur on, 260.

Elephant, 52, 53, 57.

Emboitement, theory of, 159n., 289.

lao of plants, Malpighi on,
1

English Proverbs, Ray on, 128.

Eye, Compound, Hooke on, 143, 187;
Swammerdam, 187; Leeuwenhoek,
188, 205.

Fabricius of Aquapendente on de-
velopment of chick, 159.

—, J. C., on Linneus, 336.

Faujas-Saint-Fond, 366.

Feathers, structure and development.
of, 142, 161, 231, 232.

Ferns, development of, 28, 117, 172.

Field-cricket, Frisch on, 241.

Finger-tips, Grew and Tyson on, 173.

Fleas, Leeuwenhoek on, 207.

Flower, parts of the, 346; historical
po of do., 349; early studies of,
337.

Foraminifera, Hooke and Leeuwen-
hoek on, 216.

Fracassati, 163.

Frisch, 240.

Frog and tadpole, Swammerdam on,

Fruits and seeds, dispersal of, 170,
299, 322.
Fuchs, 19, 23, 24, 39.

Galileo, 36, 137; his microscope, 137.

Garcias ab Horto, 71.

Genus, 109, 116.

Geoffroy, C. J., 230; on ‘‘ crab’s
eyes,” 235.

Geological maps, Lister and others
on, 133.

Gerard, 33, 78, 114, 119.

Germination of seeds, Ray on, 122n.;
Malpighi, 157.

Gesner, 19, 21, 28, 46, 48, 72, 77, 85,
104, 108.

Ghini, Luke, 15, 77.

Gilles (Gillius), 57.

Giraffe, 52, 53n., 54, 55, 58.

Giseke on natural orders, 327.

394

Glossaries of botanical terms, 346.

Goat-moth, Lyonet on, 291; Roesel,
297.

Gossamer, Lister on, 132.

Govi on discovery of microscope,
136.

Graaf, 175.

Greece (ancient), natural history in, 1.

Greene, E. L., quoted, 20n., 25n.,
28 n.

Greenhouses, 98 n.

Grew, 125, 166.

— and Millington on sexes of plants,
338.

Guénau de Montbéliard, 366.

Hales, Stephen, 335.

Harvey, 104, 106; on development of
chick, 159; on insect-transforma-
tion, 181.

Henshaw, his supposed discovery of
spiral vessels, 149 n.

Herberstein, 58.

Hermann, 122.

Herodotus, 2, 51; on date-palm, 337.

Hill on bees, 87.

Historical table of parts of flower,
349.

Hive-bee, see Bee.

Honey-dew, 91.

Hooke, 185, 201; on Foraminifera,
216.

How, 126.

Huber, 274.

Humble-bee, Swammerdam on, 193.

Humboldt, 75, 390.

Humming-birds, 63, 69.

Hydra, Leeuwenhoek on, 216, 280;
Trembley, 279; Baer, 283 ; Roesel,
300.

Hydrophilus, Frisch on, 243.

Ichneumons, 117, 132; Frisch on, 244.

India-rubber, 63.

Infusoria, Leeuwenhoek and others
on, 302: Ledermiiller, 303.

Insects, figured by Albin, 253, Goe-
dart, 253, Frisch, 253, Madame
Mérian, 253, Roesel, 294; trans-
formations of, 181 ; orders of, 183,
278; generation of, 226; name of,
241; Réaumur on, 252; animals
formerly included in, 253; polli-
nation by, 340.

Jardin des Plantes, 361.

Jonston, 6n., 50, 104.

Jung, 115, 128.

Jussieu, A. L. de, 351, 352, 353,
356.

—, B. de, 351, 352, 356.

INDEX

King, Edmund, 238.

Kites in England, Turner on, 78,
Willughby, 111.

Knight, T. A., 335.

Kenig on honeycomb, 235.

Ledermiiller, 303.

Leeuwenhoek, 200, 269, 280.

Leguminous plants, tubercles on roots
of, 158.

Linneus, 30, 35, 37, 39n., 46, 123,
124, 272, 310; on sexes of plants,
346; L. and the Jussieus, 352; L.
and Buffon, 370-3.

—, Elizabeth Christina, 318.

Lister, Martin, 180, on ichneumons,
118; Malpighi on, 147 ; on Mouffet,
85 ; on geological maps, 133.

L’Obel, 19, 32, 37, 39, 45, 122.

Lonicer, 50.

Lyonet, 283, 288, 291.

Magellan, 71.

Malpighi, 104, 120, 121, 125, 145;
M. and Swammerdam, 160; on
function of stamens, 338.

Manatee, 62, 69.

Maraldi, 272, 273, 274; on honey-
comb, 235.

Marco Polo, 53.

Marsigli, 276.

Massari, 146.

Mayerne, 85-6.

Mead, made from honey, 92.

Medicine in Middle Ages, 9, 12.

Mérian, Madame, 253.

Mery, 229, on respiratory movements
of bird, 232; on woodpecker’s
tongue, 232; on skin and tongue of
frog, 234; on Anodon, 235.

Micropyle, 167.

Microscope, discovery of,
Leeuwenhoek, 202.

Microscopic measurement, 203.

Miller, Philip, on pollination by in-
sects, 340, 345.

Millington and Grew on function of
pollen, 171, 338.

Milton on bees, 89n.

Minute anatomists, 135.

Monkey-chain, Acosta and others on,
68.

Monocotyledons and _ Dicotyledons,
L’Obel on, 34; Malpighi, 121;
Ray, 121, 122, 129.

Morland on fertilisation of flowering
plant, 341.

Moths, Réaumur on, 257.

Mouffet, 84, 88 n.

Munro, Alexander primus, Hssay on
Comparative Anatomy by, 238.

136; of

INDEX

Muscle-nerve preparation of Swam-
merdam, 199.

Mussel, see Anodon and Mytilus.

Mytilus, Leeuwenhoek on, 211;
Heide, 213.

Natural history iu Middle Ages, 10.

Natural theology, 113.

Nearchus, 52.

Nectaries discovered by Malpighi,
156; Linneus on, 324

Olaus Magnus, 58, 107.

Opossum, 60.

Ortus Sanitatis, 13.

Oviedo, 60.

Oyster, cilia of, 212; anatomy of, 237.

Pallas, 75.

Parts of the flower, 346.

Pena, 32.

Penny, 85.

Perrault, Claude, 229; on feathers,
231.

Peter Martyr Anglerius, 59.

Peysonnel, 276.

Physiologus, 7.

Plants, Euglish names of, 8; sexes of,
125, 171.

Pliny, 5, 6, 27, 28, 52, 56; on silk,
96, 119, 136; on date-palm, 338;
on parts of the flower, 337; on
sexes of plants, 338.

Pluche, Spectacle de la Nature, 236.

Plumier, 32.

Pollen, 337, 348 ; Valerius Cordus on,
28; Grew, 171, 172 n.

Polyzoa, Hooke on, 142; Leeuwen-
hoek, 212; Roesel, 301.

Poupart, 229-236.

Priestley, 335.

‘*Prolepsis” of Linnzus, 325.

Protozoa, Hooke on, 140; Leeuwen-
hoek and Roesel, 216.

Proverbs, Kay on, 128.

Ptolemies, 52.

Puss‘moth, investigation of, 303.

Ramond, 35.
Ranunculacee, A. L. de Jussieu on,

353.

Ray, 37, 46, 75, 77, 99; on androgyny
of snails, 118; on sexuality of,
plants, 125; on species, 125.

‘“Ray’s Travels,” 128.

Réaumur, 230, 244, 278, 281, 285,
286; on Puss moth, 304.

Redi, 225.

Reftelius quoted, 38.

Reverse planting, 218.

Revival of learning, 9.

395

Revival of botany, 12.

— — and zoology in England, 76.

Rhineland, 15.

Rivinus, 122, 123, 319.

i von Rosenhof on Ameba, 216,

Rollin on natural history for young
persons, 236.

Rondelet, 28, 30, 45, 112.

Roth’s life of Brunfels, 17; of Bock,
20.

Rotifers, Leeuwenhoek on, 214.

Ruel, 14, 18.

Salviani, 47.

Sap of trees, Ray and Willughby’s
experiments on, 119; Malpighi’s,
120.

Scale of Creation, 290, 371.

Scale-insect of orange-tree, 236;
Frisch and Breyn on male insect,
244,

Schott of Strasburg, 17.

Science in Middle Ages, 10.

Sensitive plant, 73, 144.

Serres, O. de, 93.

Sexes of plants, 125, 171; views of
the ancients, 337-8, of Malpighi,
Millington, Grew and Ray, 338;
experiments of Camerarius, 339;
Morland, 341; Geoffroy and Brad-
ley, 342; Vaillant, 343; A. P. de
Candolle, Amici and Robert Brown,
345; Kolreuter, 349; Sprengel,
Darwin and H. Miiller, 350.

Sexual system of Linnzus, 325, 331.

Silk, Pliny on, 96; O. de Serres on,
97; Réaumur on, 256.

— of spiders, Réaumur on, 247.
Silkworm, 53, 96; Malpighi on
anatomy of, 160.
Slabber on Sagitta,

Noctiluca, 303.

Sloth, 61.

Snail, androgyny of, 118.

— Swammerdam on, 194.

Sorbonne, the, 367.

Species, Ray on, 125.

—, origin of, Linnzus on, 332; Buffon
on, 375.

Sperm-whale, 73.

Spermatozoa, Hamm and Leeuwen-
hoek on, 204.

Spiders, Leeuwenhoek on, 209 ; Lister
on, 132.

Sprengel on
Ao were, 340.

Stamens, function of, 171, 172n. ; see
also Sexes of plants.

Steno or Stensen, 174, 176, 179,
199 n.

nauplii and

cross-fertilisation of

396

Stomates discovered by Malpighi,
155; Grew on, 170.

Swammerdam, 75, 114, 118, 174; on
Malpighi, 160.

Sylvius, Franciscus, 175.

Tabernemontanus, 12, 21.

Tadpole, Swammerdam on,
Leeuwenhoek, 203.

Telesio, 37 n.

Theophrastus, 4, 23, 38 n., 39, 52; on
date-palm, 337.

Thévenot, Melchisedec, 175, 180,
192n.

Titius, 123 n.

Topsell, 87.

Tournefort, 122, 280; ejection of
leguminous seeds, 236 ; on function
of stamens, 341.

Tragus, see Bock.

Trembley, 279.

Trew, 31.

197;

INDEX

Turner, W., 30, 76, 104, 105.
Tyson, Anatomy of a Pygmie, 238 ;
on finger-tips, 173.

Vaillant, 312, 343.

Vessels of plants, Malpighi on, 153;
Grew, 169.

Virgil on bees, 91; on silk, 96.

Volvox, Leeuwenhoek on, 217; Baker
op, 217.

Whalebone, 112.

White, Gilbert, 107.

Willis, 106; his De Anima Brutorum,
23)

7.
Willughby, 46, 99; see also Ray,
Jobn.
Wood, Leeuwenhoek on
structure of, 219.
Woodpecker’s tongue, Méry on, 232,
Worms multiplied by section, 288-9.
Wotton, 49, 85.

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