Species

60 Species

Wee also see it daily that the natures of fruits are changed by transplantation, some

to better, some to worse, especially with the change of Climate. Crabs [crabapples]

may be made good fruit by often grafting, and the best Mellons will change in a yeare

or two to common Cowcummers by being set in a barren soile: Therefore taking the

kindes præcisely of all creatures, as they were by God created, or out of the earth by his

ordinance produced: the Arke... was sufciently capacious to contain of all, according

to the number by God appointed...

The next major work of Ark logistics was that of the German Jesuit, Athanasius
Kircher (1602–1680), who had a reputation as a polymath. In a tract entitled De arca
Noë (1675),^47 he expanded upon Buteo’s work, and listed no more than 50 kinds of
quadrupeds.^48 The rest were hybrids formed afterwards from these kinds, or geo-
graphical varieties from by the conditions in which they found themselves. The
lower animals were formed, as with Buteo, by spontaneous generation. As Breidbach
and Ghiselin note, however, he immediately came under criticism by Francesco Redi
(1626–1697), after he carried out numerous experiments to test spontaneous genera-
tion.^49 Kircher held fast, in part because his entire argument relied upon these meth-
ods of generating new kinds, and in part because of his commitment to a universal
taxonomy of all things which God had intended.
The next such work was offered by Bishop John Wilkins.^50 We shall encounter
him again below, but for now it is sufcient to note that he listed only 58 kinds, even
fewer than Buteo (Figure 3.3), although slightly more than Kircher. He notes that
there is no problem with some species:

(^47) Kircher 1675.
(^48) Breidbach and Ghiselin 2006, 998.
(^49) Breidbach and Ghiselin 2006, 999.
(^50) Wilkins 1668. See the essays in Subbiondo 1992 for context and commentary.
TABLE 3.3 (CONTINUED)
Buteo’s List of Beasts on the Ark
Animals That Eat Forage
and Grain Animals That Eat Meat Reptiles Birds
Rabbit of the hare family
Common rabbit
Wild rabbit
Badger
Squirrel
Dormouse
Mice and mole (born of
corruption, so not on Ark)
Mule (not on Ark)
Hedgehog
Porcupine