time when the taste for obfervation 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 eftablishing 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 firft includes butterflies with erect wings; all that he ranks in this section 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 clofer 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 grafshoppers. The eight of flies. The ninth of millepieds, and the tenth of fpiders. The fame author has added short remarks to the observations of Goedart, and has been chiefly at pains to correct him when he has happened to mistake falfe 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 first observes 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 d:fcovered 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 Litter finds fault with Gozdart juftly, without being able to fet him right, the fame place furnishes another, where he criticifes him without any foundation. Lifter affirms that the fame caterpillar, when it is difpofed to change its form, fixes itself to a wall by a single thread, drawn across its body from right to left, and in which it remains fufpended. But in this he is miftaken; for the caterpillar in queftion, as Goedart well obferves, fufpends itfelf by its hinder part only, Such as attach themfelves to walls by means of a fort of girdle are not of the fame fpecies. Befides, properly speaking, the girdle is not compofed of a fingle thread, but is a congeries of many.

The work mentioned here, is not the only one that Lifter 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 treatises, 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 ftill worse than thofe of Goedart. The butterflies especially are often of an unfufferable deformity, their outlines in general all resemble 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 inveftigated his fubject, especially in what relates to the industry of infects, and the mechanifm of their operations. He hath detected them in their most secret actions, and gives us a moft 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 fhall 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 seen.

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, 1. 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 publifhed.

PAGE 20, 1.9.

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

PAGE 20, 1. 14.

Frem Dutch into French. The tranflator has done it no

fervice

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

PAGE 20, 1. 19.

He added plates. I have not feen the edition of Henninius; but the whole 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 courfe, 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 master-piece that will for ever be the object of admiration. But what a pity was it that he should have been born in an age, and in a country where there existed so little tafte for that kind of knowledge, that not a bookfeller could be found who would print fo excellent a work! He 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 Nature. If I am not mistaken this name 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 himfelf in his Hifioire generale, that is, it is divided into four parts, according to the four feveral changes which he 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 enumerates 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-fith, the frog and the fern.

Although

Although this book bears every where the marks of its author's genius, yet it is impoffible not to obferve when reading it, that towards the end he begins to flag, and we fee with regret, what effects piety when difturbed by fanaticifm can produce on a mind exhaufted by application.

PAGE 22, 1. 24.

*Such are the affiftances. Since the days of the author many excellent works have been publifhed on infects, particularly after the fyftem of Linneaus appeared, which not only difpelled the chaos that hung over the whole class, but clearly gave the definition of an infect which had not been done before. Germany efpecially is rich in publications on this fubject, which are too numerous to be mentioned here. În England the chief are the Aurelian, or a Natural History of English infects by M. Harris. LOND. folio, 1766. Illustrations of Natural Hiftory by D. Drury, 4to LOND. 1771, &c.-Barbut's Genera Infectorum; 4to. The English Entomologift, exhibiting all the Coleopterous infects found in England; by Thomas Martyn, LOND. 1792. In France a very fplendid work was begun, intitled Entomologie, ou Histoire Naturelle des Infectes, of which two large 4to volumes were published before the Revolution, containing Coleoptera only. PAGE 25, 1. 10.

I will endeavour to difpofe my reader. These words are truly worthy of a Chriftian Philofopher. This is the proper end which a perfon ought to propofe to himself in the ftudy of the works of nature, which, without it, is nothing but vain curiofity. We commit an outrage on the Being of Beings, when we fet ourselves to contemplate his wonders, without deigning to lift our eyes to their author. As every thing proclaims h's greatnefs, and every thing bears the marks of I is wisdom and infinite power, it is blindness not to acknowledge him, and it is criminal to acknowledge him without at tlie fame time paying him the tribute of our worship and adoration. PAGE 28, 1. 29.

A flea never can produce a wafp. A perfon uninftructed. in natural hiftory, feeing that one fpecies of maggot fometimes produces different forts of flies; and that often feveral forts of flies proceed from one caterpillar which naturally produces a butterfly, would be led to think that there was nothing but declamation in what the author has advanced and no truth in it. 3 he would be wrong to judge in this

manner