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Walton further seasoned his book with fragments of information about fish and fishing, more or less apocryphal, gathered from Aelian, Pliny, Plutarch, Sir Francis Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner, Rondeletius, the learned Aldrovandus, the venerable Bede, the divine Du Bartas, and many others.

The following is from Aldrovandus, a celebrated naturalist of the sixteenth century, whose work on natural history, in thirteen folio volumes, contains with much that is valuable a large proportion of fables and inutilities.

In particular he is so ample on the subject of the cock and the bull that from his practice, all rambling, gossiping tales of doubtful credibility are called COCK AND BULL STORIES. Aldrovandus, however, deserves our respect and esteem as the founder of a botanic garden, and as a pioneer in the now prevalent custom of making scientific collections for purposes of investigation and research.

There is a remarkable Particular mention'd by Aldrovandus relating to the Pigeon, which is, that the young Pigeons always bill the Hens as often as they tread them, but the elder Pigeons only bill the Hens the first time before coupling.

How much natural history is likely to be found in such a lumber-room? and how is one to lay one's hand upon the little that there may actually be?" It is hoped that the reader will see Buffon, much as Buffon saw the learned Aldrovandus.

Embryology emerged as a distinct scientific discipline during the last half of the sixteenth century and early years of the seventeenth century as a result of the aforementioned investigations of Aldrovandus, Coiter, and Fabricius. Concerned with description and depiction of the anatomy of the embryo, they established a period of macro-iconography in embryology.

Concerning the Life of a Pigeon, Aristotle says, that a Pigeon will live forty Years, but Albertus finishes the Life of a Pigeon at twenty Years; however, Aldrovandus tells us of a Pigeon, which continued alive two and twenty Years, and bred all that time except the last six Months, during which space it had lost its Mate, and lived in Widowhood.

Aldrovandus says that in the sixteenth century there came to the Canary Islands a family consisting of a father, son, and two daughters, who were covered all over their bodies by long hair, and their portrait, certainly reproduced from life, resembles the modern instances of "dog men."

"Aldrovandus is the most learned and laborious of all naturalists; after sixty years of work he has left an immense number of volumes behind him, which have been printed at various times, the greater number of them after his death.

They seem, in fact, to have forgotten what they have to say in their endeavour to tell us what has been said by other people. "I picture to myself a man like Aldrovandus, after he has once conceived the design of writing a complete natural history.