The Historic Library has many titles important to the study
of natural history which contain vivid illustrations of flora
and fauna.
Fauna: Pennsylvania Hospital's Menagerie
Below, engravings of an elephant and a reptile from an English
translation of the work of Ambroise Pare (1510-1590), a 16th-century
French physician.
  
At
left, "The Red Bird" from The Natural History
of Carolina by Mark  Catesby. Catesby (1679-1749) was
an enthusiastic botanist who wrote extensively andillustrated
his own work. When he found it too
expensive to have his drawings engraved, he learned to
engrave his own work. The original drawings are in the Royal
Library
at Windsor. Of the Red Bird he wrote, "These Birds are common in all
parts of America from New England to the Cape of Florida, and
probably much more South... They are frequently brought from
Virginia, and other parts of North America for their beauty and
agreeable singing, they having some notes not unlike our Nightingale,
which in England sees to have caused its name of Virginia Nightingale..." He
describes the size of the Bird as "it equals if not exceeds
the Skylark." The color of the body is scarlet with
the back and tail darker and more of a cloudy red.
Flora: Botanicals and Herbals
 At
right, "Tulips" from Robert Thornton's Temple
of Flora (London, 1807)
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