OUa ZOOLOGICAL ANCESTORS. 115 



volume is adorned by a very well engraved portrait of the author, and contains 

 many interesting details on the transformations of insects of different orders. 

 Thus on plates 3 and 17 we have represented Tenthredo Hosce and T. pavida; 

 42 J Meloe Proscarahoeus ; 51, Saperda carcharias ; 18, Coccinella 1 -punctata; 

 44, Tlpida oleracea ; 13 and 34, Oeonietra urticata and G. sambucaria; and 

 plate 37 contains the larva of the Puss Moth, with its parasite Ophion 

 luteum. The number of plates in this volume is fifty- one, with two hundred 

 and fifty-nine pages of text, inclusive of a useless appendix by the editor, 

 "de insectorum utilitate,'' etc. 



The last volume opens with a very excellent plate of Vanessa cardui ; plates 

 E, K, R, and X are respectively devoted to the metamorphoses of Notodonta 

 ziczac, Cidaria Jlnctuata, Agrion Puella, and Tipula plumosa; and the work 

 closes with a figure of Saturrda P. mcy'or, which was sent the author from 

 Paris, '^ut originera ejus, data occasione, indagaret." The plates in this last 

 volume are twenty in number, the text occupying forty-five pages. Upwards 

 of a hundred additional pages are tilled, by way of appendix, with the same 

 sort of irrelevant matter which characterize the other editorial addenda of 

 De Mey. 



In 1(582, an English translation of Gocdart's work, by Dr. Martin Lister, 

 was published at York, in small 4to. The plates are very accurately copied, 

 but the figures are all reversed j and the text, which is wretchedly printed, 

 is full of typographical errors. This edition is now rarely to be met with, 

 only one hundred and fifty copies having been printed, as the Dr. tells us, 

 and "which were intended only for the curious." Lister subsequently published 

 another edition in Latin, with the sama plates, in 1685, in 8vo. In these 

 editions the insects are grouped together into sections, according to the editor's 

 idea of their affinity* while many judicious remarks and strictures are made 

 on Gocdart's observations, sometimes Lister not hesitating to say that "the 

 whole thing is impertinent, and not worth the recital." 



As a specimen at once of the author's text, and Lister's style of translation 

 and remarks, we will give a single extract from the English edition, page 81, 

 where Goedart, in his "experiment" with the larva of the Vapourer Moth, 

 goes on to say that "it changes its skiVi with great anxiety, wiping its 

 sweaty body with the feather-like tufts; all the day, after the shifting of its 

 skin, it rests without food, and all its body is very tender and soft. After 

 it had cleansed itself well, it changed the 20th. of June, and abode in it 

 until the 30th. of the same month, and then can)e forth a wretched creature, 

 neither butterfly nor caterpillar; the reason of the defect was, that it abstained 

 from meat before its time, its body not being arrived to that perfection 

 requisite to its change." 



Lister then adds, "The author's words must be favourably interpreted, for 

 it is plain in the table that the animal was a butterfly; but as he well notes 

 a starved thing; many of which I have had, whose wings were yet imperfect, 

 or at least not in a condition to bo expanded." Such appears to have been 



