PREFACE. 
Vll 
Prodromus Hidorica Naturalise he. Edin. 1684, and his History 
ancient and modern of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross, 
Edin. 1710 (the 8vo edition, Cupar, 1803, is the one now ge- 
nerally quoted), had bestowed much attention on the characters 
of the different kinds of whales which had been captured in 
the Scottish seas, or stranded on various parts of the coast. His 
Phalainologia Nova, Edin. 169^, rescued this department of 
zoology from the obscurity in which it had previously been in- 
volved. A reprint of this work, at the instigation of Mr Pen- 
nant, took place in 1773, and is the edition now in general 
circulation. 
The Birds of Britain were enumerated and described with 
great precision in the Ornithologia of Francis Willoughby, 
a work edited, after the death of the worthy author, by Ray in 
1676. An English translation was at the same time published, 
with some additions; and, in 1713, an abridgement made its 
appearance, under the title Joannis Raii Synopsis methodica 
Avium ; opus posthumum ; edited by the venerable Derham. 
The native Reptiles are few in number, and are well de- 
scribed by Ray in the Synopsis already referred to. Few ad- 
ditions of any value by subsequent authors have hitherto been 
communicated. 
Fishes occupied the attention of Willoughby. His Ich- 
thyologia, as edited by Ray, Oxford 1686, is a work of great 
labour ; and the descriptions, especially of British species, are 
models of precision. A few additions were afterwards made 
to this division of the British Fauna by Ray in his Synopsis 
methodica Piscium, London 1713, chiefly from the contribu- 
tions of the Rev. George Jago of Loo. 
While the History of the Vertebral Animals was thus assi- 
duously cultivated by individuals well qualified for the task, the 
Invertebral kinds were not overlooked. 
The Mollusca were diligently investigated by Martin 
Lister, and the descriptions of many species in the Cochlearum 
Anglice Historia, which forms a part of his Historia Animalium 
AnglicE, London 1678, are minute and illustrative. But the 
greatest service which Lister rendered to this department of 
science arose from the publication in 1685 of his Historia sive 
Synopsis methodica Co7ichyliorum. The plates of this valuable 
