'The Wonderful Mr. Willughby' profiles a pioneer of ornithology and early scientist

In the mid-17th century, Aristotle still reigned as the most reliable font of worldly wisdom, as he had for the previous millennium. He believed, among many erroneous things, that certain animals could spontaneously be born from dirt, and that the explanation for the different-looking birds that frequented Greece in summer versus winter was that they were the same species that had simply morphed into a whole new look for the high season.

Galen, the renowned