Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 153 
The natural history of the Pinna, and the formation of Pearls, 
were elegantly and amply treated of in a memoir which appeared 
in the volume for 1717- 
The " Thesaurus Animalium" of 
RUYSCH 
contains several figures of shells grouped with corals and other 
substances, as they stood in the museum; but, his book being a 
mere catalogue, the descriptions are of little use. The 6th plate, 
which is admirably engraved, exhibits the shell and contained 
animal of a species of Voluta, which he calls Buccinum Guienense. 
Most of the shells figured in this work are natives of the Indian 
seas. 
The countryman and contempory of Reaumur, and whose only 
treatise relative to Testacea appears among the memoirs of the 
same learned body, 
MERY, 
wrote some remarks on the common river muscle, which are both 
elaborate and diffuse. The anatomical structure of the animal is 
considered ; and we find other descriptions of a miscellaneous na- 
ture : but this author seems to have borrowed pretty largely from 
the labours of others. 
MORTON, 
the natural historian of Northamptonshire, notwithstanding the 
number and elegance of his engravings of fossil shells, and his 
mention of many species of the recent kind, unfortunately ha 
presented us with only two figures of the latter, which occur i 
his 13th plate : his description of them, however, is in genera 
illustrated by references to Lister. 
vol. vii. x CYPRIANUS, 
