136 Notice of British Naturalists, 



Art. XIY.—Some Notice of British Naturalists; by Rev- 



Y 



Continued from Vol. xxxvi, No. 2, p. 230, 



Ray had two contemporaries whose names are still remembered 

 with respect. To the first we owe the origin of British Con- 



chology. 



Martin Lister was descended front an old and respectable 

 Yorkshire family j "but his parents^ having removed from their 

 own county, had settled in Bucldnghamshire, where he was born 

 in 1638, His earlier education was superintended by his uncle, 

 Sir Matthew Lister, Thysician 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 per- 

 fect himself, as was then usual for persons of his education, about 

 five years after he had become a fellow, he settled at York to 

 practice as a physician. Whether he had heretofore, paid any at- 

 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 discoveries, 

 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 weis a frequent contributor ; ana 

 he appears to have been not only an acute observ^er, 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, ana 

 one or two upon the anatomy of Testacea. But his principal 

 works, and those upon which his fame and usefulness as an au- 

 thor chiefly rest, are — I. Hzstorice Animalium Anglian, t^'^^ 



