124 
Dr. Maton's and Mr, Rackett's 
he apologises, by remarking, that persons who reside in the vici- 
nity of the sea are alone competent to attempt a full description 
and a scientific discrimination of the Testacea. — We have next to 
mention 
BELON, 
famous for his travels in the East, and who was, perhaps, one of 
the first learned men that travelled with a particular view to na- 
tural science. In 1553 he published at Paris an octavo volume 
" de Aquatilibus" accompanied by figures, among which are a 
few shells not incorrectly represented, but the description is 
scanty and superficial. The succeeding year 
RONDELETIUS 
(Professor of Physic at Montpelier), whose situation had given 
him many opportunities in this way, published on the same sub- 
ject in a work bearing the title of " Universa Aquatilium His- 
toria." In the second part of this work he has described and 
figured upwards of one hundred species of Testaceous animals. 
He has quoted largely from Aristotle and Pliny, interspersing his 
descriptions Avith philological remarks, which are, in many in- 
stances, more copious than those which relate to the nature of 
the creatures themselves. 
In the different editions of the Commentaries of 
MATTHIOLUS 
the cuts are very different, both in accuracy and dimensions, and 
still more so in number. The first edition of this work contains 
figures of only nine species of shells ; the blocks seem to have 
been afterwards borrowed by the Spanish booksellers (a practice 
very common at that period), and hence the figures of the Sala- 
manca edition of 1566 are the same. In the Italian edition of 1565 
some 
