BRITISH ZOOLOGISTS. 91 



principally upon two of these, both dealing mainly with 

 shells namely, his ' Historia Animalium Angliae/ and his 

 * Historian sive Synopsis Conchyliorum.' The first of these 

 is, so far as it goes, a * Natural History of Britain,' but it 

 deals only with the British spiders, the land and fresh- 

 water shells, and the marine Mollusca. Added to it 

 is a tract upon British fossils, or, as Lister puts it, * lapides 

 ad cochlearum imaginem figuratae.' The second of these 

 is a systematic treatise on shells, and was the best work 

 upon the Mollusca which had appeared up to that time. 

 According to Swainson,* Lister's works on natural history 

 are 'characterised by accurate observation, great know- 

 ledge of comparative anatomy, and, in general, just notions 

 of the natural affinities of animals. His various works 

 on shells have laid the foundation of all precise knowledge 

 on this subject;' and Linnaeus characterised his history 

 of the Mollusca as the fullest (ditissimus) treatise on this 

 group of animals which had appeared up to his time. 



Another of the early naturalists who dealt with British 

 animals was the famous Sir Robert Sibbald, best known 

 as an antiquary of no mean pretensions. Sir Robert 

 Sibbald was born in 1641 in Edinburgh, in one of the 

 stormiest periods of the stormy history of Scotland, during 

 the seventeenth century. He adopted the profession of 

 medicine, and studied at Leyden and in Paris, taking his 

 degree at Angers. In 1662 he settled as a physician 

 in Edinburgh, where he practised for some years, and 

 took a prominent part in the establishment of a botanic 

 garden. Having inherited an estate, he left Edinburgh 

 and lived in the country, where he continued to carry 



* ' Bibliography of Zoology,' p. 254. 



