152 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



activity in America. In Boston two similar volumes exist, one of which 

 was presented by Dr. Gray of the British Museum, to Dr. Gray the 

 botanist of Cambridge, and by him to the Natural History Society, where 

 it may now be seen. The other volume is a collection, perhaps the only 

 considerable one which has never passed out of this country, which was 

 purchased by the Society from Dr. Oemler, of Georgia, who inherited it 

 from his father.* 



In the title page of the last volume of the British Museum series there 

 is a miniature portrait let into the title page, which, tradition says, was 

 painted by Abbot himself, and indeed it bears every mark of this, though 

 there is no memorandum to this effect within the volume. With its 

 peculiar physiognomy it adds considerably to our interest in the original ; 

 there seems to be not a little humour in the quaint features and figure, and 

 the spare form hardly gives the figure of robust health which the face 

 would indicate. Abbot probably returned to England about 1810, at an 

 age of about fifty, and our portrait was doubtless painted at about this 

 time, certainly before he left America, since it represents him in the 

 thinnest of southern costume. There were old persons living in Georgia 

 up to 1885, but since deceased, who knew him, but apparently none now 

 remain. 



Abbot's work was by no means on Lepidoptera alone, as any of the 

 series of his drawings will show. Dr. Hagen, in speaking of the volume 

 in the British Museum containing the Neuroptera, says that all the details 

 are given with the greatest care, and that in almost all cases the species 

 can be identified. The same is the case with most of the drawings of 

 Lepidoptera, though there is a mark of carelessness in some of the figures 

 of early stages which is not found in others ; this is no doubt due to the 

 fact that so many applied for these drawings, "both in Europe and 

 America, that he found it expedient to employ one or two assistants, whose 

 copies he retouched, and thus finished they generally pass as his own. 

 To an experienced eye, however, the originals of the master are readily 

 distinguished." 



It would hardly appear that he paid more attention to Lepidoptera 

 than to other insects. Yet in the Oemler collection alone there are one 

 hundred and thirty-three plates of Lepidoptera, nearly every one of which 



*Mr. Oemler and Mr. " Le Compte ". are both mentioned in Abbot's notes as 

 sending him specimens. 



