animal, fo defpicable in their eyes, as an infect. They grow tired, therefore, in copying fo many minutiæ, their attention relaxes, and the work exhibits evident marks of their negligence.

It were to be wished, therefore, that every naturalist were a skilful draughtsman: but as this is impoffible, I would require at leaft, that they knew enough of the art, properly to direct the painters they employ, and to judge of their work as connoiffeurs, that they might receive nothing from their hands, except what was correct and well-finished. It is by this means alone, and by that I have already mentioned, that we can ever become able to fix the number of known infects, to underftand their history, to determine fuch as are peculiar to any country, what effects difference of climate produces on them; in a word, to have as general and distinct a knowledge of infects, as we have of other animals and plants; but if thefe precautions are neglected, authors will give themselves much useless trouble: and even the more that is written on the fubject, the more danger there will be, of diffeminating uncertainty and confufion, when we defcend to particulars. There will, no doubt, be a great number of curious facts brought to light, refpecting infects; but when one fhall attempt to verify thefe facts, by bis own experience, he will not know where to find the animal, nor when found, will he know it: and the fame animal, reprefented in ten different works, will appear in each, of a different fpecies; while ten different animals to be found there, might be taken for the fame animal. This cannot but load Natural History with a vast number of imaginary infects, while the true fpecies will, for the most part, be unknown.

PAGE. 17. 1. 3.

Goedart. The work of this author is to be ranked among thofe that have plates indifferently engraved, efpecially thofe in the French tranflation. Many infects are there fo ill reprefented that they cannot be known, and thofe that are known are for the moft part fo defective that if the detail of their changes and the defcriptions that accompany it did not fupply the faults of the figure, almoft the whole of the plates would become ufelefs. It must be confeffed likewife that the descriptions are in general very imperfect; and as Goedart lived at a

time when the tafte for observation and experiment was not yet formed, we must not expect to find in his descriptions that juftnefs and accuracy, which can alone render them fit for establishing the truth of a fact.

PAGE 17. 1. 17.

Mr Lifter. The following is Lifter's arrangement. He diftributes the infects of Goedart into ten fections. The first includes butterflies with erect wings; all that he ranks in this fection are day butterflies, and their chryfalids are angular. The fecond proceed from the caterpillars called geometra, and have their wings placed horizontally. The third treats of those with hanging wings fitting closer to the body than those of the preceeding fections. The fourth treats of dragon flies. The fifth of Bees. The fixth of beetles. The feventh of grasshoppers. The eight of flies, The ninth of millepieds, and the tenth of fpiders. The fame author has added fhort remarks to the obfervations of Goedart, and has been chiefly at pains to correct him when he has happened to mistake false transformations for natural changes. In other refpects his criticifms are not always juft fometimes he finds fault with his author unreasonably; and fometimes when he finds fault with reafon, he does not fucceed in fetting matters to rights. For example let us take his remarks on the third Caterpillar of the first Section. Goedart obferves that this caterpillar is one of the fpiny kind that live on the elm, and that when it is about to change, it fufpends itself by the extremity of the abdomen, and after having quitted its skin, the belly and legs of the chryfalis are found placed by a ftrange transformation, where the back of the caterpillar formerly was, Lifter at firft obferves here, that he fuppofes Goedart to have been deceived when he affirms the belly of the chryfalis to be on the fide where the back of the caterpillar was, and in this he is right. But when he endeavours to explain how this pretended change of the members of the infect might have taken place, by fuppofing that it had turned itfelf round in the dry fkin of the chryfalis, and was found thus in a reverfed pofition, he is exceedingly mistaken, for there never happens any displacing in the parts of the caterpillar that is transformed into a chryfalis; and the belly and legs of the chryfalis, are always on the fame fide that they were on in the caterpillar. What led Goedart into

the

the mistake, was that the chryfalis in queftion, has upon its back a fort of figure of a face which made him take the fide where that appearance of a face was for the belly, whereas had he examined more attentively the oppofite fide, he would have difcovered the marks of the legs, the antennæ, aud the other parts which are never found but on the fide of the belly in a chryfalis. Befides this inftance in which Lifter finds fault with Goedart juftly, without being able to fet him right, the fame place furnithes another, where he criticifes him without any foundation. Lifter affirms that the fame caterpillar, when it is difpofed to change its form, fixes itfelf to a wall by a fingle thread, drawn across its body from right to left, and in which it remains fufpended. But in this he is mistaken; for the caterpillar in question, as Goedart well obferves, fufpends itself by its hinder part only, Such as attach themfelves to walls by means of a sort of girdle are not of the fame fpecies. Befides, properly speak, ing, the girdle is not composed of a fingle thread, but is a congeries of many.

The work mentioned here, is not the only one that Lister compofed on infects. There is a Latin treatife of his on the fpiders of England, another on the fhelled fnails of the land, and fresh water; a third on the fea-fhells of the fame country, and a fourth on the petrifactions that are found there. These four treatifes, which appear to me better than his remarks on Goedart, form together a quarto volume of 250 Pages, printed at London in 1678.

PAGE 17, 1. 21.

Johnfion. The figures in his book are still worse than thofe of Goedart. The butterflies especially are often of an unfufferable deformity, their outlines in general all refemble one another, very few like nature. He meant to range infects in order, but it would have been better that he had not attempted it; or had followed a better method, for according to his, one is obliged in order to know the fucceffive changes of the fame animal, to feek for them in different parts of his book, which is very troublesome.

PAGE 18, 1. 14.

M. de Reaumur. The work of this author is excellent in its kind, and is by no means undeferving of the encomiums it received from the Journalists of the time. This acade

mician is perhaps the only one who can truly be faid to have perfectly investigated his fubject, especially in what relates to the industry of infects, and the mechanifm of their operations. He hath detected them in their moft fecret actions, and gives us a most accurate account of the fingular means they employ, in order to attain their ends; and on this part of his fubject, which is one of the most curious in Natural History, he deferves particular praife. He enters into details which in general leave nothing more to be defired. The new ideas which he throws out will be of great service to thofe who fhall ever treat the fubject methodically; and it is probable we shall be indebted to him, for the most fyftematic work on infects which fhall appear. The world is ftill farther obliged to him for communicating the ingenious methods he used in the making of fo many excellent difcoveries, by which he has put it in every one's power to verify his experiments, and to procure himfelf the pleasure of feeing what he has feen.

As to the figures of his work, they are as highly finished as the fubject requires. As the author did not propofe to give defcriptions of the different infects of the fame clafs, it was not thought neceffary that his plates fhould be better executed than they are.

PAGE 18, l. 18.

They were reprinted in Holland. That edition is in 8vo. The type is fmall, but the plates are perfectly well imitated. The avarice of fome of the Dutch bookfellers, who fold the Paris edition at double price, haftened this fecond edition and made the other fall to a moderate price.

PAGE 18, 1. 21.

Till the Work is compleat. Mr Leffer must have been ill informed here, or rather Reaumur has altered his purpose, for fix volumes of his memoirs have already been published.

PAGE 20, 1.9.

General Hiftory. The work this author has published under that name, is, properly fpeaking, only the plan he thought that fuch a hiftory ought to be conducted on, as other people have already remarked.

PAGE 20, 1. 14.

From Dutch into French. The tranflator has done it no

1

fervice

fervice in the tranflating; one would not easily believe on reading the French tranflation that the book in Dutch is exceedingly well written.

He added plates. I

nius; but the whole

PAGE 20, 1. 19.

have not feen the edition of Hennie that the author here attributes to him is to be found in the Dutch edition of 1669, and in the French one of 1685, except that in place of a differtation there is one chapter, which treats of the analogy between infects and plants. }

PAGE 21, 1. 5.

For the diffection. It was in the anatomy of infects that Swammerdam particularly excelled, and that he left all who had pursued the fame course, far behind him. His dexterity in diffecting these finall animals furpaffes imagination and borders on the miraculous. His Biblia Natura is on this fubject a mafter-piece that will for ever be the object of ads miration. But what a pity was it that he fhould have been born in an age, and in a country where there existed sö little tafte for that kind of knowledge, that not a bookseller could be found who would print fo excellent a work! Hé himself had not the means of doing it at his own expence and he died without reaping the fruit of a labour in which he had wafted his days, and spent his fortune.

PAGE 21, 1. penult.

He called it Biblia Natura. If I am not mistaken this hame was given to it by Swammerdam, not by Boerhaave. PAGE 21, 1. laft.

The first part contains. The view which Mr Leffer gives of the divifion of this work does not appear to me altogether juft. The Biblia Naturæ is formed on the plan which Swammerdam had laid down to himself in his Hiftoire generale, that is, it is divided into four parts, according to the four feveral changes which lie had obferved to take place in infects. In each of thefe parts he begins by explaining the progrefs of the change which he treats of; he then enunerates the infects which belong to it, and laftly the Hiftory of feveral of thefe infects. This is in fubftance the plan of his work to which he has added fome feparate effays, fuch as that on the cuttle-fifh, the frog and the fern.