Although Pliny cannot be depended upon as a naturalist, his writings are important as a source of pure Latinity. His style is generally simple, sometimes harsh, usually laconic, although when he enters upon philosophical reflections it becomes animated, energetic, and copious. His morality is more pure than we could have expected, considering his doubts respecting the existence of a Deity, his disbelief in the immortality of the human soul, and the absence of those motives by which mankind are commonly influenced. He never ceases to censure vice of every kind; and as to the examples of cruelty, luxury, and effeminacy, which he has occasion to relate, his remarks are not less accordant with reason than with the soundest principles of Christian ethics. The first editions of Pliny appeared at Venice in 1469, and at Rome in 1470. The most useful and convenient is that of Franzius, in ten volumes 8vo, published at Leipsic in 1791. From what has been said above it will appear, that down to the time of Pliny naturalists had not succeeded in forming any system of zoology. In the writings of that author, the animals of which he treats are so disposed, that the absence of all arrangement is very obvious; nor is it even possible to guess upon what principle he makes the species succeed each other. In his chapter on land-animals, he places the elephant first; and as mice come last, we might imagine that he had intended to proceed on the principle of size. The bison, the wild-horse, the elk, the bonasus, the lion, the panther, the tiger, the camel, and the camelopard, of which the first individual seen at Rome was exhibited by Julius Caesar at the Circensian games, follow in order. Then come the rhinoceros, the lynx, apes and monkeys, wolves, serpents, the ichneumon, the crocodile, the skink, the hippopotamus, first shown at Rome by Marcus Scaurus, lizards, tortoises, hyenas, frogs and seals, deer, porcupines, bears, marmots, squirrels, vipers, snails, dogs, horses, asses, and mules, and the other principal domestic animals. His arrangement of birds is equally unsystematic. The fabulous phoenix occupies the first rank, and is followed by eagles, hawks, birds of evil omen, as ravens and owls, woodpeckers, peacocks, the domestic fowl, geese, cranes, swans, thrushes, doves, the ibis, the nightingale, and the kingfisher. With these are mingled various heterogeneous elements. The same may be said of all the other departments. Were the knowledge of animals which we possess at the present day not regularly methodized, it would be utterly impossible for an individual to distinguish half the number of mammalia and birds, which are among the least extensive classes. The first inventor of a system, however imperfect, has therefore the strongest claims upon our gratitude. Aristotle may be said to have laid the foundation for one, or at least to have made an attempt; Ray was the first who sketched a rude classification, in which