Historical Account of Testaceological Writers, 133 
of this dissertation every source of information connected with 
the history of these animals. 
WILLIS, 
the celebrated physiologist, has very accurately figured and de- 
scribed the anatomy of the Ostrea edidis in his Eiercitationes de 
A n una Brut or urn . 
The annotations of 
MAJOR 
on the elegant and learned treatise of Fabius Columna have been 
alluded to before : as the annotator himself was the author of a 
system, he is entitled to specific mention in the proper chronolo- 
gical place. This system is annexed to a republication of the 
history of the Purpura, together with a " Dictionarium Ostracolo- 
gicum" the most useful part of Major's performance. He adopted 
a new and elaborate method of distributing Testacea, founded 
principally on the species described by Columna himself, whose 
figures (twenty-five in number) are copied in wood-cuts placed in 
the systematic as well as in the descriptive part : among them are 
several fossils of the genera of Chama and Anomia. The method, 
however, is infinitely too complicated and ramifying to admit of 
any useful application. The dictionary exhibits an explanation 
of all the terms then employed in Testaceology, pointing out the 
respective authors by whom they were first introduced, and 
tracing out, in most instances, the derivation of them. The ter- 
minology of modern systems is, evidently, far from being chiefly 
of modern invention, and it is curious to remark how many of 
the designations established in the Fundament a Testaceologice may 
be found in the earliest glossary connected with that science, the 
Dictionarium Ostracologicum of Major. 
When 
