136 Notice of British Naturalists. 
Arr. XIV.—Some Notice of British Naturalists; by Rev. 
Cartes Fox, Cor. Mem. of the N. Y. Lyc. of Nat. Hist. 
Continued from Vol. xxxvr, No. 2, p. 230. 
Ray had two contemporaries whose names are still remembered 
with respect. 'T'o the first we owe the origin of British Con- 
chology. 
Martin Lister was descended from an old and respectable 
Yorkshire family ; but his parents, having removed: from their 
own county, had settled in Buckinghamshire, where he was born 
in 1638. His earlier education was superintended by his uncle, . 
Sir Matthew Lister, Physician to King Charles I, and President 
of the Royal College of Physicans in London. At the usual age 
he entered the University ; and in 1658, being then but 20 years 
of age, he took his degree at St. John’s College, Cambridge. Like 
Ray he appears to have distinguished himself here by his abili- 
ties and his classical attainments; and two years after, he was 
created by the royal mandate, a fellow of his College. ‘The pro- 
fession which he now chose to pursue was that of medicine } and 
having traveled for some time upon the continent, in order to pel 
fect himself, as was then usual for persons of his education, about 
five years after he had become a fellow, he settled at York 
practice as a physician. Whether he had heretofore, paid avy - 
tention to the study of Natural History, further than his profession 
required, does not appear; but it was not till 1671 that he first 
became an acknowledged writer upon the subject. The only 
periodical work of importance, the pages.of which were at this 
time open to accounts of miscellaneous scientific discovers 
was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Lon- 
don. In this work we find Lister’s first paper,—“ Observations 
on an acid liquor obtained from ants and perhaps other insects. 
After having thus once began, he was a frequent contributor ; and 
he appears to have been not only an acute observer, but likewise 
a careful collector of miscellaneous facts on a variety of subjects 
His papers in the Philosophical Transactions amount, in tHe 
whole, to about forty ; several of which are upon antiquities, and 
one or two upon the anatomy of Testacea. But his princip* 
works, and those upon which his fame and usefulness as an a" 
thor chiefly rest, are—I. Historie Animalium Anglie, 74 
. 
