“ Now the early Christian centuries were anything but a period of scientific research. Rhetorical accomplishments were considered to be the chief object of a liberal education, and to this end every kind of learning was made subservient. Instead of reading Aristotle and other naturalists, people went for information to commonplace books like those of Aelian, in which scraps of folk-lore, travellers’ tales and fragments of misapprehended science were set forth in an elegant style. ”

“ The Physiologus relates about the ant-lion: his father hath the shape of a lion, his mother that of an ant; the father liveth upon flesh, and the mother upon herbs. And these bring forth the ant-lion, a compound of both, and in part like to either, for his fore part is that of a lion, and his hind part like that of an ant. Being thus composed, he is neither able to eat flesh like his father, nor herbs like his mother ”

“ As nearly all its imagery is taken from the animal world, it is also known as the Bestiary. There can be hardly a doubt about the time and general circumstances of its origin. Christian teachers, especially those who had a leaning towards Gnostic speculations, took an interest in natural history, partly because of certain passages of Scripture that they wanted to explain, and partly on account of the divine revelation in the book of nature, of which also it was man’s sacred duty to take proper advantage. ”