Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 133 



of this dissertation every source of information connected with 

 the history of these animals. 



WILLIS, 



the celebrated physiologist, has very accurately figured and de- 

 scribed the anatomy of the Ostrea edulis in his Exercitationes de 

 Anima Brutorum. 

 The annotations of 



MAJOR 



on the elegant and learned treatise of Fabius Columna have been 

 alluded to before : as the annotator himself was the author of a 

 system, he is entitled to specific mention in the proper chronolo- 

 gical place. , This system is annexed to a republication of the 

 history of the Purpura, together with a " Dictionarium Ostracolo- 

 gicum" the most useful part of Major's performance. He adopted 

 a new and elaborate method of distributing Testacea, founded 

 principally on the species described by Columna himself, whose 

 figures (twenty-five in number) are copied in wood-cuts placed in 

 the systematic as well as in the descriptive part : among them are 

 several fossils of the genera of Chama and Anomia. The method, 

 however, is infinitely too complicated and ramifying to admit of 

 any useful application. The dictionary exhibits an explanation 

 of all the terms then employed in Testaceology, pointing out the 

 respective authors by whom they were first introduced, and 

 tracing out, in most instances, the derivation of them. The ter- 

 minology of modern systems is, evidentl}^ far from being chiefly 

 of modern invention, and it is curious to remark how many of 

 the designations established in the Fundanienta Testaceologice may 

 be found in the earliest glossary connected with that science, the 

 Dictionarium Ostracologicum of Major. 



When 



