192 MELVILL : BRITISH PIONEERS IN CONCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 



the several l)ases on which they rested their theories, the for- 

 mulae of classification, that is to say, that emanated from a few 

 great founders of systems, as Aristotle, Linnaeus, Cuvier, and 

 Lamarck must necessarily be mentioned. 



I propose to succinctly touch, in chronological order, on the 

 chief writers, travellers, collectors, and students, natives of our 

 islands, who flourished between the latter half of the seventeenth 

 century and the end of 1858, this latter date having been 

 selected for two reasons. P'irstly, as the admirable work of 

 Messrs. Henry and Arthur Adams, their ' Recent Mollusca,' 

 was concluded in October of that year, and, secondly, as within 

 three or four years of that time that most indispensable publica- 

 tion, the ' Zoological Record,' published its first volume, which 

 catalogues in order every communication touching on the 

 science, be it large or small. 



This period of time seems divisible into four distinct 

 epochs, each either commencing or ending with some radical 

 systematic change leading to a revolution in arrangement. 



EPOCH i, 1662 — 1756. 



The earliest Museum of Natural History objects, and the 

 like, amassed in this country, was the famous collection of John 

 Tradescant, father and son, the elder being gardener to Charles 

 I, who was settled at Lambeth, where he established a curious 

 collection called Tradescant's Ark, or the Museum Tradescanti- 

 anum, in which all the natural families and order of Birds, 

 Animals, Fish, were located, special attention being paid to 

 Shells. Tradescant travelled in North America, where he dis- 

 covered the Spider-wort, named Tradescantia after him by 

 Linnseus, and was perhaps better known as a Botanist than 

 Zoologist. His son, inheriting his father's possessions, bequeathed 

 them on his death in 1662 to Mr. Elias Ashmole, founder 

 of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, where the large proportion 

 of them are at the present time. 



J.C., 'vi., Jan., 1890, 



