First published in 1719 and exceptional in its day for 460 brilliantly coloured copper engravings, Renard's treatise on the marine life of the East Indies has been dismissed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries because of its apparent embellishment, exaggeration, and even falsification. This book reexamines this classic work in the light of modern scholarship, and also contains a facsimile of the original text, plus translation, as well as extensive notes of Renard's life and how he came to write this remarkable book.