BRITISH ZOOLOGISTS. 



WHILE the principles of zoological science were being 

 laboriously worked out, and natural history was thus 

 gradually being placed upon a sound and truly philo- 

 sophical basis, many investigators were engaged in re- 

 searches upon the animals which inhabited their own 

 countries. 



As regards Britain, one of the earliest, as also one 

 of the most meritorious, of the naturalists who have 

 from time to time devoted themselves more particularly 

 to the study of the indigenous animals, was Martin Lister, 

 best known as a conchologist. Lister was born at Rad- 

 cliffe, in Buckinghamshire, in 1638, and was a contem- 

 porary and intimate friend of Ray. Like so many other 

 naturalists, he was by profession a medical man, and he 

 practised for many years in York, subsequently removing 

 to London. He was a well-known physician in his day, 

 having been for a time physician in ordinary to Queen 

 Anne, and he wrote various medical treatises,* which, 

 however, are of no particular value at the present day. 

 His title to fame rests upon his zoological writings, and 



* The list of his writings, medical and zoological, occupies a column in Watt's 

 Bibliotheca Britannica. 



