BUGS. 107 



annals of Natural History, a more extended mention 

 may not be unacceptable to my readers. 



Madame Maria Sibilla Merian was the daughter of 

 Mathew Merian, a distinguished French artist. She 

 was born in 1647, at Frankfort-on-tke-Main, and 

 early in life devoted herself to drawing and painting, 

 particularly plants and insects. At the age of eigh- 

 teen she was married to a painter of Nuremberg, 

 named John Andrew Graf. This marriage did not 

 prove a fortunate one, and a few years after it took 

 place, Graf's affairs became so much involved, and 

 his conduct in other respects so censurable, that he 

 was obliged for a time to leave the country. In 

 consequence of this separation, Madame Merian never 

 assumed her husband's name in any of her publica- 

 tions, but became known to the public by her maiden 

 appellation. 



After her separation from her husband, she for 

 a long time abandoned all kinds of company, and 

 devoted herself exclusively to the painting of insects, 

 in order to be able to represent them with sufficient 

 accuracy for the purposes of Natural History. The 

 result of her labours in this department, appeared 

 in 1679, in three volumes, published at Nuremberg, 

 the plates being engraved by herself. 



The difficulty of preserving Caterpillars and other 

 larvse, is sufficient to account for the small number 



