They were not all, far from it, like Richard de Fournival's, love-bestiaries; most of them had a religious tendency.
"The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare"
J. J. Jusserand
Lyly's natural history was at any rate the result of learning; many of his "facts" were drawn from Pliny, while others were to be found in the plentiful crop of mediaeval bestiaries, which, as Professor Raleigh remarks, "preceded the biological hand-books."
"John Lyly"
John Dover Wilson
The sole difference between the styles of Lyly and Pettie is that, while Pettie's similes from nature are simple and natural, Lyly, with his knowledge of Pliny and of the bestiaries, added his fabulous "unnatural natural history."
"John Lyly"
John Dover Wilson