Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 139 
tant part of his " Historia Animalium Anglia" Previous to the 
publication of this work, however, he exhibited a specimen of his 
arrangement of the British Testacea in some tables printed in the 
9th volume of the Philosophical Transactions, in which collection 
nothing of a similar nature had ever before been inserted. The 
three treatises which composed the Histor} T , and which related 
to spiders, to land and fresh water shells, and to those that inha- 
bit the sea, were published in a quarto volume in the year 1678, 
with a distinct tract relative to fossils. They were accompanied 
by twelve copper plates, the first four of which illustrate the de- 
scriptions of the insects, and the eight others those of the recent 
and fossil shells. With respect to system, it must be confessed 
that the author was far from having attained either simplicity or 
accuracy; it had for its basis the very unphilosophical distinction 
of the abode of the animals, and in its subdivisions the ramifi- 
cations were too numerous to be referred to with facility. The 
paucity of generic terms also formed a lamentable defect. His 
principal object, indeed, (as he himself informs us in his pre- 
face,) was to render the description of species as ample and accu- 
rate as possible; and he expresses himself with so much good 
sense and genuine science on this point that we cannot forbear 
inserting his own words in this place : " Illud autem (says he) in 
hoc opusculo prcecipue institui; nimirum, singulorum gencrum bes- 
tiolas quam accuratissime in species diducere; cujus ilia certe singu- 
laris utilitas esse possit, ut si qiue in posterum prceclara experimenta 
de his animalibus aliorum industria confecerit, ea tuto hue referri pos- 
sint, suisque quazqiie locis rccte disponantur. Mihi interea illud satis 
superque est, ea primum nostra animalia seculo indicasse rcrum naturce 
studiosissimo. Qui vera simile opus aggres.sifucrint, ci fantum intel- 
ligant quantum sudaximus, resque adeo minutas vel extrema linea 
ctrto cognoscere esse aliquid. Cum autem plcraque, qua hie habentur, 
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