Historical Account of Tcstaceological Writers. 123 



^LIAN 



does not omit the Testaceous tribe in his work TLe^i Zwwi/ <JW?]T0£: 

 but that philosopher's knowledge of the habits of these animals 

 was of course very limited, and the chapters dedicated to such 

 subjects arc, therefore, very concise. It ought, perhaps, to be 

 mentioned, that the distribution of his matter is slid more va<me 

 than that of his predecessors, and much superstition is mixed 

 with it. 



After the dark ages, one of the earliest writers on the subject 

 of natural history was 



VINCENTIUS 

 (a Dominican monk of Beauvais) ; but he does not treat of any 

 branch of that science otherwise than specifically, attempting no 

 general arrangement, nor dividing his work otherwise than into 

 books and chapters. His " Speculum Natures," in the vast com- 

 pass of its curious matter, contains descriptions of a few of the 

 more remarkable shells, as the mutes, purpura, ostrea, &c. but 

 they are borrowed chiefly from Aristotle and Pliny, and are re- 

 plete with the absurd and superstitious notions of the times. The 

 year following 



ALBERTUS MAGNUS 

 published his volume " de Animalibus," &c. in which are similar 

 scattered descriptions of various shells, without any scientific 

 order, or much original information. 



ADAM LONICERUS, 



in his " Iliatoricc Naturalis Opus novum," introduces fio-ures of 

 shells, and describes a few species under the heads of Cochlea- and 

 Concha: but he is extremely concise ; a circumstance for which 



R2 he 



