78 PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 23, NO. 4, APRIL, 1921 



August Name CAROLINA, this and Your great Goodness in encouraging all sorts 

 of Learning, have emboldened me to implore Your Royal Protection and Favor 

 to my slender Performance. I hope Your MAJESTY will not think a few Min- 

 utes disagreeably spent in casting an Eye on these Leaves, which exhibit no 

 contemptible Scene of the Glorious Works of the Creator, displayed in the New 

 World; and hitherto lain concealed from the View of Your MAJESTY as well as 

 of Your Royal Predecessors tho' so long possessed of a Country, inferior to none 

 of Your MAJESTY'S American Dominions. 



Wherefore I esteem it a singular Happiness, after several Years' Travel and 

 Enquiry in so remote Parts (by the generous Encouragement ot Your MAJESTY'S 

 Subjects, eminent for their Rank, and for their being Patrons of Learning), that 

 I am the first that has had the Opportunity of presenting to a QUEEN of GREAT 

 BRITAIN a sample of the hitherto unregarded, tho' beneficial and beautiful Pro- 

 ductions of Your MAJESTY'S Dominions. I am 



May it please Your MAJESTY, 



Your Majesty's 



Most humble^ 



and most dutiful Subject 



M. CATESBY. 



The plates accompanying Catesby's work were etched on 

 copper by him personally from his own paintings and afterwards 

 colored under his supervision. They are of large size, measuring 

 about 10 by 13 5^ inches. There are represented in all some 27 

 figures of insects, of which the first volume contains 3 and the 

 second 24, including one centipede. The insects proper are dis- 

 tributed according to order as follows: Lepidoptera 12, Orthop- 

 tera 4, Hymenoptera 4, Coleoptera 4, Siphonaptera 1, and 

 Diptera 1. The. latter for some reason has but four legs, per- 

 haps because a fly catcher, which is pursuing it off the edge of 

 the plate, has eaten the other two. The insects for the most 

 part are introduced in the plates incidentally and at random, 

 and often are associated with plants to which they bear no 

 ecologic relation. In general, the illustrative work may be said 

 to be rather crude as compared with that of contemporaneous 

 illustrators of the better class, and does not approach the 

 excellence of the artists of a slightly later period, such as that of 

 Abbot, Wm. Wood Jr., or Peale. Catesby frankly acknowledges 

 that he was not educated as a painter and apologizes for the 

 "faults of perspective and other niceties" which are so plainly 

 evident in his work. 



The next illustrator of note of whom there seems to be any 

 record is John Abbot, a man of most excellent attainments and 

 admirable skill. John Abbot, according to his collaborator, 

 Sir James Edward Smith, founder and first president of the 

 Linnean Society, was born in London, England, about the year 

 1760. Dr. Smith says that he resided in Georgia for many years, 

 where he collected insects for sale in England and other parts of 



