Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 163 



kinds of natural curiosities, shells forming no inconsiderable part 

 of tlie cabinet. Though the works now alluded to came forth in 

 Dutch and Latin, yet the Biblia Nati/m soon assumed an English 

 dressy and its latest edition by Hill, containing the translation 

 made hy Floj^d and notes copied from Reaumur, Avas a very ac- 

 ceptable addition to the libraries of our countrymen. 



PLANCUS, 



of Arimini, published a curious book on shells found on the shores 

 of the Adriatic, with an account of the tides in that sea: there 

 are descriptions in it also of several marine productions besides 

 Testacea, which, with the latter, are figured in five plates. Some 

 of the species so nearly resemble the Cornua Ammonis, both in- 

 ternally and externally, that the author might almost have been 

 warranted in asserting the existence of recent specimens of those 

 remarkable shells, so frequent in the fossilized state. The first 

 edition of Plancus's work, " de Conchis minus notis," was printed 

 at Venice in 1739; the second at Rome in I76O, with nineteen 

 more plates than appeared in the former, which contained only 

 five; and in these five some additional fia;ures are inserted. 

 In the year 1742 appeared the splendid and valuable work of 



GUALTIERI, 



entitled " Index Testarum Conchyliorum quce adservantur in Musceo 

 Nicolai Gualtieri, Philosophi et Medici Flore7ifini" &c. The author, 

 in his preface, gives some account of the books that had been 

 published before his time; he also exhibits a system composed by 

 TOURNEFORT, whose manuscripts on this subject had been 

 presented to Gualtieri by Professor Targioni, The curious reader 

 cannot fail to be interested in whatever came from the pen of one 



Y 2 of 



