Historical Account ofTcstaceological Writers. 155 



Of these plates contain shells, and are not ill executed, but the 

 descriptive part is slight and useless. 



JOHN HENRY LOCHNER, 

 the author of a work entitled " Puiriora Musei Besleriani," unfor- 

 tunately did notlive to enjoy the reputation which, as he was only 

 twentv'vears of age at the time of completing such laborious de- 

 scriptions, was so justly due to hnn. The care of publishing them 

 devolved to his father Michael Frederick Lochner, who was di- 

 rector of the Imperial Academy Nat. Cur., and by whom we are 

 presented, in the preface, with an interesting account ot the extra- 

 ordinary youth so prematurely snatched from the world, as also 

 of the two Beslers, whose collections were so much celebrated in 

 their day. Twenty-four plates out of the forty are the same as ap- 

 peared in Basil Besler's own work, and there are only three rela- 

 tive to shells. Much of the description is extracted from other 

 authors, and the knowledge displayed in it is chiefly of an anti- 

 quarian and philological nature, there being no attempt at 



SJStem - VALENTINE 



though his most voluminous work came forth as early as the year 

 1704! we have named here, on account of his most valuable per- 

 formance not appearing until sixteen years after the former; we 

 allude to the " Amphitheatrum Zootomicum ." It is true that a large 

 part of the contents of this volume consists of extracts from 

 preceding and contemporary writers, and many of the plates are 

 copied; but, considered with reference to shells, the Amphithe- 

 atrum Zootomicum has much better claims to attention than the 

 Museum Museorum. In the latter the figures of shells are wretchedly 

 executed. In fact, this bulky work relates to materia mcclicu as 

 much as to natural history, and the second edition actually bears 



x o the 



