Between 1660 and 1740 the scope of natural history became sensibly
enlarged. System had been hitherto predominant, but the systems had
been partial, treating the vertebrate animals and the flowering plants
with as much detail as the state of knowledge allowed, but almost
ignoring the invertebrates and the cryptogams. System was now studied
more eagerly than ever by such naturalists as Ray and Linnæus, but new
aspects of natural history were considered, new methods practised,
new groups of organisms included. Many remarkable vertebrates were
anatomically examined for the first time. Claude Perrault and his
colleagues of the Académie des Sciences dissected animals which had
died in the royal menagerie, and compared the parts and organs of
one animal with those of another; Duverney compared the paw of the
lion with the human hand; in England Tyson studied the anatomy of the
chimpanzee, porpoise, opossum, and rattlesnake, searching everywhere
for the transitions which he believed to connect all organisms, and
to form "Nature's Clew in this wonderful labyrinth of the Creation."
The new microscopes helped to bring the lower and smaller animals into
notice. From 1669, when Malpighi described the anatomy and life-history
of the silkworm, a succession of what we now call biological types were
studied; among these were many invertebrates. Edmund King and John
Master contributed to Willis's treatise _De Anima Brutorum_ (1672)
the anatomies of the oyster, crayfish, and earthworm, all illustrated by
clear and useful plates. Heide (1683) wrote an account of the structure
of the edible mussel (Mytilus), in which mention is made of the ciliary
motion in the gill; Poupart (1706) and Méry (1710) wrote accounts of
the pond-mussel (Anodon). Swammerdam's elaborate studies of insects
and their transformations were followed up by a long succession of
memoirs by Frisch in Germany, Réaumur in France, and (shortly after
the close of the period now under discussion) De Geer in Sweden. The
extraordinary diligence and power of Swammerdam and Réaumur give a
very prominent place in the biology of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries to the structure and life-histories of insects. The great
generalisations of comparative anatomy do not belong to this period;
nevertheless, sagacious and luminous remarks are not wanting.
Adaptations of Plants and Animals: Natural Theology.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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