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A preliminary discourse on the study of natural history / By William Swainson, esq.

  • William Swainson
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A preliminary discourse on the study of natural history / By William Swainson, esq. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/476 page 2
    R PALLAS. —— SCHROETER. —— BORN. — MERREM. — HERMANN. — BLOCH. — SCHNEIDER. — SCHG@PF. — LATHAM. — SHAW. -—— SIR J. SMITH. — BERKENHOUT. — LEWIN. — OTHO FABRICIUS. — OLIVI. —- ENTOMOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATIVE WORKS OF THIS PERIOD. —ERNST. — ESPER. = HUBNER. — HERBST. — JABLON= SKY. — VOET. — WOLF. — MINOR WRITERS. —— PANZERe = PETAGNI. — ROSSI. — PAYKULL. — LESPEYRES. — GMELIN. — BUFFON’S SCHOOL. — PLANCHES ENLUMINEES. — BONNET. — DE GEER. — BRISSON. — ADANSON. — DUHAMEL. — SONNERAT. — SONNINI. — LEVAILLANT. — FUESSLY. — THE MODERN FRENCH SCHOOL. — CUVIER. —DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULAR NATURE OF AFFINITIES. (1.) To form a just estimate of the relative position of any science at a given period, it is necessary that the prominent events in its history be rightly under- stood. It seems, therefore, expedient to commence this discourse with a slight sketch of the rise and progress of zoological science; or, more properly, of the progressive discovery of the forms, structures, and habits belonging to the animal world; a world replete with such an infinity of beings, each pos- sessing so many peculiarities of habit and economy, that, notwithstanding the united efforts of human research for thousands of years, there is not one of them whose history, as yet, can be pronounced complete. (2.) The vast and diversified field of enquiry over which zoology extends, and the many distinct por- tions into which it is now distributed, render it extremely difficult to embrace the whole in one general exposition. For it has happened, that at one period of time while our knowledge has made gigantic progress in one department, it has been stationary, or even retrograde, in others; and at
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