Genre:

Reportage

Subjects:

Zoology, Natural History, Mineralogy, Palaeontology

People mentioned:

Robert Sibbald, Christopher Merrett, John Ray, Francis Willughby, Martin Lister, Thomas Pennant, John Berkenhout, Carl Linnaeus, Robert Jameson

    Remarks: 'we at present have no system of British Zoology corresponding to the advanced state of natural history' (381). Later comments that if a zoologist were to write such a text, 'much attention must be bestowed in the arrangement of its subordinate parts. The general subdivisions we would recommend are those of the Linnaean system, as modified by modern discoveries and observations; but we must be careful not to run into those extremes of change, proposed, and even followed by some Zoologists' (382). Offers an outline for such a text. Later suggests: 'the natural history of the various fossil organic remains met with in the strata of the British Isles, ought to form a distinct and separate division' (383).