66 Journal Xew York Entomological Society, t^'o'- xxii. 



six pence per specimen if a round number were taken. If one 

 desired a Polyphemus, or Sphinx (a particularly well represented 

 group), or any other giant, one must pay accordingly. Besides, there 

 were offered at similar prices inflated larvae, seldom seen at all and so 

 cleverly done that much was made of the circumstance by Kirby 

 and Spence in their famous " Introduction into Entomology." Again, 

 one could buy from Francillon wonderful water color drawings, not 

 only of mature insects but of their early stages and food plants. 

 With the drawings came manuscript notes of description with English 

 names of insects and plants. The drawings were remarkable for ex- 

 cellence and were absurdly cheap. Francillon was not communicative 

 about their origin. It sufficed most customers to be told that he had 

 a correspondent in Georgia. A few of the elect knew that the name 

 of this man was John Abbot, but none knew his address. It was 

 business for Francillon, for he bought at 3d. and did not propose 

 that his wares should be secured by others from first hands to his 

 own undoing. 



Of these drawings several thousand exist in Europe. The British 

 Museum has^eventeen stout quarto volumes of them, all bought from 

 Francillon, carrying his name, book stamp, and printed title pages, 

 dated 1792 to 1804. There are volumes of them in the Museums of 

 Oxford, Paris, Zurich and elsewhere. The Boston Society of Natural 

 History has two such volumes, both remarkably fine and one probably 

 the choicest known. Only two have been reproduced and published 

 with credit given to the artist. Sir James Edward Smith of Edin- 

 burgh bought from Francillon drawings to make 104 plates and figur- 

 ing 24 lepidopterous species and bore the expense of publishing the 

 two sumptuous folio volumes which appeared in 1797 and which are 

 now among the classics. Let us be fair about the laurels not on Abbot's 

 brow. It was certainly Smith's privilege to give scientific names to 

 these undescribed species. He bought types, as well as drawings from 

 Francillon. If you or I bought from a New York dealer two dozen 

 butterflies from Africa, raised there by a dealer who sold them for 

 profit, and who was not known to you save by name alone, and you 

 found them to be new species, would you credit his name with yours 

 as the describer? Moreover, Smith never saw or heard directly from 

 Abbot. Abbot knew nothing of the book until long after publication. 

 The credit given to the worker in the field is all that the finest sense 



