Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 165 
D'ARGENVILLE 
to the kingdom of France. The modesty of this author induced 
him to conceal his name in the first edition, the title page inti- 
mating only that he was of the Royal Academy of Sciences at 
Montpellier: it was inscribed " L'Histoire Naturellc kclaircie dans 
deux de ses Parties principales, la Lithologie et la Conchyliologie " &c. 
In the first chapter of the first part some account is given of na- 
tural history in general, and of the works of those writers who 
have treated of Lithology and Testaceology. The catalogue is 
short, and the author declines speaking of his contemporaries, 
and of such as have given the natural history of particular coun- 
tries only. In the second chapter of the second part he proceeds 
to develop his system, dividing Testacea into the three com- 
monly received classes, and separating those species which inha- 
bit the sea from those which inhabit the land. His families are 
twenty-seven in number, including the Echini, and are founded 
chiefly on external figure, though in the genera of Pliolas, Solen, 
Chama, Venus, Ostrea, Cypraa, Conns, Nautilus, Strombus, Trochus, 
Helix, Nerita, Dentalium, HaUotis, and Patella, the characters 
correspond very nearly with those established afterwards by Lin- 
naeus. Of thirty-three plates, twenty-six exhibit many of the 
more common as well as of the more beautiful shells; they are 
not only finely but accurately executed, and entitle our author 
to the epithet of " nitidissimus,' 3 so appropriately bestowed on 
him by the great Swedish naturalist. We ought not to omit men- 
tioning that, besides a particular description of every species, the 
work contains a chapter on the formation and growth of Testacea, 
some observations on the methods of cleaning and polishing 
shells, and a concise account of the most celebrated cabinets of 
natural curiosities existing in Europe at that time. 
The 
