14 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



Natural History from the publication in 1685 of bis ''Historia 

 sive Synopsis Methodica Conchyliorum.'' Tbe plates exceed a 

 thousand in number, and are executed with great skill and accu- 

 racy. In the class Arachnidce, the spiders had early attracted 

 the attention of Lister ; and his description of the species, as 

 published in the first part of his " Historia Animalium 

 Anglian," is still unrivalled. The " Historia Insectorum " of 

 Eay (London 1710), to which Lister furnished a valuable 

 contribution, is the work to which Entomology is chiefly 

 indebted for its early success, and to the great popularity it 

 still maintains among Naturalists. 



The science of Insect Anatomy, however, is justly due to 

 Swammerdam, whose great wcrk entitled, *'The Book of 

 Nature," or "History of Insects," is a perfect treasury of 

 original and important facts in tlie physiology and minute 

 anatomical structure of this class of animals, and will always 

 be referred to as one of the highest authorities that can be 

 adduced on Entomological Science. 



The true spirit of science had now sprung up in the study 

 of Natural History. Anatomy and Physiology were hence- 

 forth to form the basis of the science, and aided by the appli- 

 cation of the microscope, which had just been invented by a 

 countryman of Swammerdam' s. Natural History passed from 

 simple observation and description to that of an experimental 

 science. The works of Goedart on the Metamorphoses, and 

 Eedi, on the Generation of Insects ; Leeuwenhoek's " Arcana 

 Naturae," the writings of Malpighi, Euysch, Grew, and the 

 immortal discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey, 

 justify the proud appellation that has been conferred on the 

 seventeenth century, as the physiological era or golden age of 

 Natural History. 



Time will only admit of the briefest allusion to Zoological 

 Science in the eighteenth century. A few brilliant names 

 stand out conspicuously, — those of Linnaeus, John Ellis, John 

 Hunter, Lamarck, and Cuvier. Eay's system of classification 

 of animals, although based on physiological principles, was 

 soon superseded by the more simple and effective one of 

 Linnseus. As has been stated, the system of Linnseus was 

 scarcely equal to that of Aristotle ; but by the introduction of 



