EARLY ORNITHOLOGISTS.
By the Rev. H.A. Macpherson, M.A.
The ninth edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' though now somewhat out of date in scientific matters, contains nevertheless many articles on natural history which can be referred to with advantage. Of the number, Prof. Ray Lankester's article on Zoology[1]is one of the most weighty. But there is a single sentence in this admirable essay to which we have never been able to subscribe, namely, that in which we are informed that "the real dawn of zoology..... is connected with the name of an Englishman, Wotton" (Encl. Brit. vol. xxiv. p. 803). "The real dawn of zoology" is truly inseparable from the name of an Englishman, but it is the name of William Turner, and not that of honest Wotton which is linked with the foundation of zoological science. Wotton was a book-maker, who made a digest of the zoological knowledge of the classical writers, and published the compendium under the title of De Differentiis Animalium. This work was published at Paris, and did not appear until eight years after Turner had published his history of the birds known to Aristotle and Pliny. When it did appear, it failed to add a single new fact to the science which it was supposed to further, for Wotton candidly disclaims any share of original work. He was a compiler, like Goldsmith, and he really deserves no more credit than the author of 'Animated Nature.' The modern science of zoology owes its first conception to the genius of a galaxy of talents, of which Turner, Belon, Gesner, and Aldrovandi were the brightest ornaments, though Rondelet and Salviani accomplished much for ichthyology. If we limit our attention to the science of ornithology, we find that these men knew far more about the anatomy of birds than the majority of twentieth century naturalists. Not only did they observe the habits of wild birds, study their migrations, examine their crops
- ↑ See: Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24, p. 799f. See also: 'Zoology' in 11th Edition (Wikisource-Ed.)
