For a more detailed History of the Subjects comprised in this Volume the Reader is referred to the following Works:

MR. YARRELL'S History of British Birds, and his History of British Fishes.-PROFESSOR BELL's History of British Crustacea.-PROFESSOR EDWARD FORBES' History of British Starfishes, &c.- PROFESSOR E. FORBES AND MR. HANLEY'S British Mollusca.-DR. JOHNSTON'S History of British Zoophytes, and his History of British Sponges, &c.-MESSRs. ALDER AND HANCOCK'S Nudibranchiate Mollusca.-PROFESSOR HARVEY'S Phycologia Britannica, or his Manual of British Marine Alga.-PROFESSOR ANSTED'S Geology.-PROFESSOR RYMER JONES' General Outline of the Animal Kingdom, and his Natural History of Animals. SIR JOHN G. DALYELL'S Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland, and his Powers of the Creator Displayed in the Creation.

The Reader is requested to correct with a pen the following

ERRATA.

Page 104, line 9, read, Delesseria sanguinea.

106," 3,
106," 19,

Ceramium rubrum.

99

99

268,

240,"

9 and 10, read, species are not thus brought. 24, read, and be obliged.

275, 11 and 27, read, Salicornia.

285. 3 from bottom, read, Oidemia.

Carrigeenin has been, &c.

Ir is scarcely more than a century since the several sciences to which we apply the general name of Natural History, began to rouse themselves from a sleep into which they had fallen nearly two thousand years before. The middle ages of Natural History are peculiarly the dark ages, and the darkness was dense as it was long. Throughout this long period observers were scarce; theorisers and commentators, critics of subjects which they could not comprehend, were numerous; and the body of naturalists occupied themselves in specious dreams. Here and there, like the flashes which cheer the darkness of the polar winter, noble minds rose above their

B

2

FANCIFUL SYSTEMS.

fellows to declare the truths which they had observed or discovered; but such lights were rare, and soon put aside they could not be extinguished by the race over which a busy dulness reigned supreme.

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The writers of the middle ages had built up in their own minds a perfect system, as it was supposed; and this they imagined to be the system of the universe. Instead, therefore, of seeking out, by patient observation, the facts of Nature, and reasoning upon them, they employed themselves in cutting down to their own notions of propriety every fact which seemed to contradict what the schoolmen considered a law of Nature. A glaring instance of such prejudiced explanation is found in the theories gravely put forward by learned men to explain the existence of organic fossils. Marine petrifactionsfishes, shells, corals—were found imbedded in rocks, or in the soil, in places far removed from the existing sea, and at a considerable height above its level,—in the land country, and even on the tops of mountains. The wise men of those days (so late as the year 1680) explained the phenomena by supposing a "plastic power” in Nature, which was exerted in moulding the living rock into mimic representations of animals and plants, for no better purpose, seemingly, than to puzzle and amuse the vulgar. This was cutting the knot of difficulty after a strange fashion. It was contrary to their theory to believe that the sea had ever occupied the places in which the marine productions were found. If it had not, how could these have got there? There was no reply but the resolute denial that the fossils were really the relics of marine creatures; and this, in spite of the evidence of

their senses, or the deductions of sound reason, these pseudo-philosophers unblushingly asserted. It was thus that the facts of Nature were habitually twisted to suit the requirings of a preconceived theory; and thus laborious lives were spent to no other purpose than in heaping up a mass of unreadable nonsense in our libraries.

The enunciation of the inductive philosophy was the first great blow to the fame of these writers. The perfect system of the universe was found to be no longer tenable; it fell almost at the first onset, and with it fell the charm which had embalmed every opinion handed down from classic times. The Book of Nature began to be studied with ardour, and in a new and unfettered spirit. No longer clogged with theories, naturalists found that, so far from its having been exhausted by the labours of their predecessors, Natural History was full, to overflowing, of novel interest. Facts were no longer tried by traditional authority; but tradition was subjected to the close inquisition of newly-observed facts. In every country observers were at work; and, instead of the somnambulism of the preceding ages, naturalists, like men newly risen, went forth in their morning strength and ardour to the labour of the day. The fair sun of science was already above the horizon, and it was their privilege to drink in his earliest beams.

So long as Natural History was encumbered with its pseudo-classical incubus its votaries were few in number. The more it grew into a science founded on observation, the more it attracted popular attention. The writings of LINNEUS, composed in a clear and elegant