Historical Account of Testaceological Writers. 14? 



LEIGH 



has figured a few species of Testacea in his " Natural History of 

 Lancashire," and the figures are not inaccurate; but we find no- 

 thing in the descriptive part very worthy of attention. 



WALLACE, 



also, in his " Account of the Islands of Orkney," enumerates such 

 species as had fallen under his notice, describing them chiefly in 

 the words of Lister ; and he has figured three of them. 



PETIVER. 



Though the merit of Petiver was principally that of an ichnio- 

 graphist, yet we are to consider him also as capable of describing 

 the subjects which he collected and figured, Avith accuracy and 

 science. The Philosophical Transactions contain several papers 

 written by him, which show that he considered the study of na- 

 ture as subservient to more dignified purposes than the mere 

 amusement of the eye, or the ostentatiousness of a museum : 

 those relative to shells are descriptive chiefly of foreign species, 

 and contain the synonyms of Rondeletius, Aldrovandus, Lister, 

 and others of his predecessors, wherever they were applicable. 

 The specimens which he received from the Moluccas are de- 

 scribed in the 22d volume of the work we have mentioned, with 

 some additional remarks in the 23d; those from Carolina in the 

 24th. In the " Memoirs for the Curious" we find " an account of 

 bivalves brought from the coast of India." The great assiduity 

 with which Petiver procured animals, plants, and fossils from va- 

 rious parts of the world, caused his collection soon to assume sufti- 

 cient magnitude and importance for rendering his name well 

 known both at home and abroad ; and so highly did the greatest 

 judge of the value of natural curiosities at that period, Sir Hans 



u 2 Sloane. 



