Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 139 



tant part of his '■'■ Historia Animalium Anglice." Previous to the 

 pubhcation of this work, however, he exhibited a specimen of his 

 arrangement of the British Ttstacea 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 History, 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 l678, 

 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 Avith facility. The 

 paucity of generic terms also formed a lamentable defect. His 

 principal object, indeed, (as he himself informs us in his pre- 

 face,) Avas 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 oAvn words in this place: " Illud autem (says he) in 

 hoc opusculo prcEcipue institui; nimirum, singuloriim generum bes- 

 tiolas quam accuratissime in species diducere; cujus ilia certe singU' 

 laris vtilitas esse possit, ut si quce in posterum praclara experimenta 

 de his animalibus aliortmi industria confecerit, ea tuto hue referripos~ 

 sint, suisque quceqve locis recte disponantur. Mihi interea illud satis 

 superque est, ea primum nostra animalia seculo indicasse rerum natura 

 atudiosissimo. Qui vero simile opus aggressifuerint, ei taciturn intel- 

 ligant quantum sudavimus, resque adeo minutas vel extrema linea 

 certo cognoscere esse aliquid. Cum autem plcraque, qua hie habentur, 



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