The firm of George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., of London, has published recently as a part of one of their ‘‘Broadway Translations,” a translation of the Physiologus by Mr. James Carlill and it is of interest to note the stories of the insects mentioned therein, not on account of their entomological value or absence of it, but as partly indicative of a forgotten state of thought. Mr. Carlill, who has written a scholarly and interesting introduction to his translation which is used as the basis of this article, states that the sermons of Physiologus concerning the animal world formed a great part of the library of Christian Europe for almost a thousand years and were read or narrated as expositions of science and of religion from the Bosphorus to Iceland, taught in the universities, quoted by popes and friars and even made visible by carvings in the interiors of places of worship. - [Author]

Language: English