14j shells and shell-fish. part 1. 



(14.) Our celebrated countryman. Lister *, was the 

 first naturalist, after the revival of learning, who made 

 any decided improvement in this science, since he re- 

 garded both the animals and the shells ; and his noble 

 volume will be an imperishable record, both of his 

 talents and his industry. The excellent figures of 

 Rumphiust;, published in 1711:> are still valuable, as 

 are likewise those of Gualtieri :|:, but neither of these 

 writers can scarcely be said to have benefited the subject 

 in any other way. D'Argenville's plates, although more 

 elaborately finished, are very inferior to those of the 

 last-named works ; and it has been truly said, that what 

 is really valuable in his book has been taken from 

 Lister. The conchological labours of Klein, who was 

 perpetually writing upon every branch of natural his- 

 tory, partake of the character which belongs to all, — a 

 total want of genius. It was, in fact, reserved for 

 Adanson§, the celebrated French traveller and naturalist, 

 once more to revive malacology from the frivolous state 

 into which it had been gradually sinking since the days 

 of Lister : by studying both the animal and its shell, 

 he prosecuted his researches on sound and philosophic 

 principles ; and hence it is, that his volume, although 

 published in 1757:, is highly valuable, while the '^ tes- 

 taceous " arrangement of Linnaeus is as if it had never 

 been written, — or it is consulted only, at rare intervals, 

 to determine a specific name. But Adanson confined 

 himself to the shell-fish of Senegal ; and it was not sur- 

 prising that the scientific world, captivated by the sim- 

 plicity of the Linngean nomenclature, still continued 

 attached to the plan of considering the Testacea merely 

 in regard to their shells, of which innumerable species 

 now began to pour in on the European cabinets. This, 



* Lister. Historia, sive Synopsis Metliodica Conchyliorum. London, 

 one volume, folio ; of which there are two editions, the last in two volumes. 

 See Prcl. Discourse, p. 24. 



t Ku.MPHius, G. E. 'J'hesaurus Imaginum Piscium, Testaceoriim, &c. 

 Haga; Comilum, 17;)9, folio. 



: Nico. GuALTiiRi. Index Testatum Conchyliorum. Flor. 1742, royal 

 folio. The figures are the most artisticai of any that we remember: the 

 rotundity of the spiral shells is admirably represented. 



\ Hist. Nat. des Coquillages du Senegal. Tans, 1757, 4to. 



