Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Bestiary

Bestiary , noun

[Late Latin bestiarium, from Latin bestiarius pert. to beasts, from bestia beast: compare French bestiaire.]

A treatise on beasts; esp., one of the moralizing or allegorical beast tales written in the Middle Ages.
A bestiary... in itself one of the numerous mediaval renderings of the fantastic mystical Zoology. — Saintsbury