Animals review – a carnival of curious fish and fantastic beasts

British Library, London
From a medieval monk mixed with a fish to the call of an extinct Hawaiian bird, this entertaining show revels in nature's marvels - real or otherwise

In 1255, the King of France gave Henry III of England an elephant; a sensation for medieval eyes that drew crowds to the royal menagerie at the Tower of London, including the artist, chronicler and Benedictine monk Matthew Paris. The picture Paris drew from life shows with clarity how the elephant has its leg tied to a post, how it stands imprisoned and wearily spurts water from its trunk. He shades the ridges and rumples on its vast body, as he tries to accurately depict this creature that's stepped out of fable.

This 13th-century portrait of an elephant encapsulates the paradoxical delights of the British Library's cornucopia of animal art. To medieval folk, an elephant was a monstrous legendary beast from their myths of faraway lands - yet Paris pins this fantastic being to reality, tying it down with his objective gaze. From this early attempt at scientific natural history, to a tiny drawing of a bird in flight from Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Arundel, to Ludwig Koch's pioneering 1953 gramophone record of British bird songs, Animals explores how human beings have sought to observe and understand our fellow species. Yet it also revels in the fabulous, impossible dreams we have made of them.