The great naturalists

Unity in diversity

[pt. 1]. The

ancients --

Aristotle : the first philosopher-naturalist / Julia Brtittain --

Theophrastus : the father of botany / Christopher J. Humphries & David Sutton --

Pedanios Dioscorides : recording the medicinal use of plants / David Sutton --

Pliny the Elder : collector of knowledge / David Sutton --

[pt. 2]. The Renaissance --

Leonhart Fuchs : the value of illustrations / Brian W. Ogilvie --

Ulisse Aldrovandi : observation at first hand / Giuseppe Olmi --

Andrea Cesalpino : physician, philosopher and botanist / Robert Huxley & Christopher J. Humphries --

Pierre Belon : pioneer of comparative anatomy / Alan Cutler --

Konrad Gessner : the beginnings of modern zoology / Sachiko Kusukawa --

[pt. 3]. The enlightenment --

Nicolaus Steno : unlocking the earth's geological past / Alan Cutler --

John Ray : the English Aristotle / Robert Huxley --

Robert Hooke : natural history through the microscope / Brian J. Ford --

Antony van Leeuwenhoek : the discoverer of bacteria / Brian J. Ford --

Sir Hans Sloane : the great collector / Robert Huxley --

Maria Sibylla Merian : the metamorphosis of insects / H. Walter Lack --

Mark Catesby : colonial naturalist and artist / Steve Cafferty --

Carl Linnaeus : the man who brought order to nature / Christopher J. Humphries & Robert Huxley --

Comte de Buffon : a grand theorist / Sandra Knapp --

Georg Steller : the discovery of Alaska / Robert Press --

Michel Adanson : a universal method of classification / Denis Lamy --

Erasmus Darwin : evolutionary beginnings / Robert Press --

William Bartram : scientific recorder and artist / Judith Magee --

Joseph Banks : voyager and patron of natural history / Tania Durt --

Johann Christian Fabricius : classifier of insect diversity / R.I. Vane-Wright --

James Hutton : discoverer of geological time / Jill Cook --

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck : the inheritance of acquired characteristics / Sandra Knapp --

Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu : a new method of plant classification / Denis Lamy --

Georges Cuvier : extinction and the animal kingdom / Philippe Taquet --

[pt. 4]. The 19th century --

William Smith : the father of English geology / John L. Morton --

Alexander von Humboldt : a vision of the unity of nature / Judith Magee --

John James Audubon : artist, naturalist and adventurer / Roberta J.M. Olson --

William Buckland : first to describe a dinosaur / Jill Cook --

Charles Lyell : advocate of modern geology / Jill Cook --

Mary Anning : fossil hunter / Crispin Tickell --

Richard Owen : champion of comparative anatomy / David Williams --

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz : examination, observation, comparison / David Williams --

Charles Darwin : the complete naturalist / Keith Thomson --

Alfred Russel Wallace : the problem of the origin of species / Sandra Knapp --

Asa Gray : the plants of the American Southwest / Sandra Knapp --

Contributors --

Further reading --

Sources of illustrations --

Index.