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Edward Topsell (1572-ca. 1625)

The history of four-footed beasts and serpents

London, 1658

This work, which drew on the previous labors of Konrad Gesner, show of both the fantastical (dragons, unicorns) and the familiar (horses, goats) the realm of natural history.

Much of the information about the natural world beyond Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries came from travelers - based either on their own direct observance or on what they learned by word-of-mouth. Their unreliable reports were a mix of the real and the imagined seen in natural histories of the time.

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Uploaded on July 2, 2013
Taken on June 13, 2013