24 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



indications of their natural arrangement, all of which 

 Linnaeus, in his zeal for simplification, passed over ; 

 and thus fell infinitely below our countryman in his 

 classification of the Aranice no less than in his 

 general arrangement of the testaceous animals. 

 The greatest work of Lister, however, only appeared 

 in 1685. It contains his general system, or synopsis, 

 of conchology, and is enriched with no less than 

 1059 plates or figures of shells ; among which 

 several represent, with great accuracy, the internal 

 structure of the animals themselves : most of these 

 figures are so accurate, and all are so characteristic, 

 that even to this day they are indispensable to the 

 conchologist, and this remarkable volume forms one 

 of the most valuable and standard works in this de- 

 partment of zoology.* 



(13.) About this time natural history began to 

 be pursued in England with greater zeal, and in 

 a more philosophic spirit, than in any other part of 

 Europe. No writer had appeared in France, since 

 the days of Belon ; nor had Italy contributed any 

 thing to natural science, since the desultory yet 

 curious observations of Boccone, the famous Sicilian 

 botanist. On the other hand, Britain, which had 

 been far behind in contributing to the early restor- 

 ation of learning, seemed now to have suddenly 

 sprung into life, and produced a constellation of 



* Martin Lister. — (1.) Historiae Animalium, Angliaj Tres 

 Tractibus : unus de Araneis ; alter de Cochleis turn terrestribus 

 turn fluviatilibus ; tertius de Cochleis Marinis. Londoni, 

 1678 ; small quarto. (2.) Historia sive Synopsis Methodica 

 Conchyliorum. Folio. Londoni, 1685 — 1693. There is also a 

 translation, by Lister, of Goedart's insects, published in 1685. 



