Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 1/29 
with figures of any species, nor are his«descriptions on this sub- 
ject at all full, except where he treats of pearls. 
About twenty years after the publication of the Museum Calcc- 
olarium there appeared a performance of a similar nature in the 
" Gazophylaciuin Rprum Naturalium" of 
MICHAEL RUPERT BESLER 
(the brother of Basil), whose plates were in the first edition twen- 
ty-four in number, representing, among other subjects, a few 
figures of shells, some of which, however, arc formed artificially 
into ridiculous similitudes of human heads, &c. There is a con- 
cise description in Latin under the respective figures. In the 
second edition, the number of plates was augmented to thirty- 
five, with a German preface ; but in this, as in the former publi- 
cation, the majority of the subjects relate to artificial curiosities. 
Toothing can be more incommodious than the size of the book, 
which is almost twice as large as that of the copper-plates. 
The museum of 
WORMIUS 
contained many species of Testacca : but the author vouchsafed 
' figures of none of them, except Lepas anatifera ; and this was one 
that might well have been spared, being copied from Marcgrave's 
Nat. Hist. Brasilia, which is referred to by Linnteus for that spe- 
cies. Connected with it we have the whole of the ridiculous story, 
so generally received by the credulous naturalists of that day, re 
specting the Barnacle Goose. Chapters 6, 7. and 8 of the tk Mu- 
seum Wormianum" relate entirely to shells, divided, according to 
the Aristotelian classification, into Univahia, Bivalvia, and Tur- 
in n at a. 
The volume of which we have been speaking was preceded by 
the synoptic catalogue of SEC ER, printed at Copenhagen in lo'.v;. 
vol. vn. s An 
