As defined in the eighteenth century, “natural history” meant description (then a synonym for “history”) and classification of everything in nature, from the cosmos to the insect. Understandably, then, few naturalists attempted surveys or syntheses of so shapeless a range of subjects. One of the few, Carl Linnaeus, tried to chart the order in all realms of nature in a series of taxonomic works devoted to the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Another, Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, criticized taxonomies as incapable of accurately depicting nature in all its variety; by omitting botany, Buffon’s Histoire naturelle narrowed its focus in one respect while broadening it in others, as the author included the origin of the solar system, the history of the earth, and a treatment of animals that went beyond anatomy into such matters as environments and heredity.

Some naturalists contented themselves with producing compendia of “curiosities,” and others tried to give unity to these collections by indicating their aim of revealing, in John Ray’s famous title, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691). Many sought a degree of completeness by selecting either a geographical or a topical focus. As examples of the former, one can cite the long British tradition of local histories that effectively began with Robert Plot’s Oxfordshire (1677) and eventually included one literary classic, Gilbert White’s Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). Although studies of this kind seem to have been less common outside Britain, a striking feature of almost all such works was the attention given to human artifacts, chiefly those of antiquity, and often to such topics as language, customs, and migrations.