1 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



is true that the artist, working independently and copying mecha- 

 nically, may serve as a check on the naturalist, who in minute mi- 

 croscopic examinations may he apt to see too much in conformity 

 to preconceived theories ; hut that is not often the case : the most 

 satisfactory analytical drawings I have always found to he those 

 made by the naturalist's own hand, and I have long felt how much my 

 own inability to draw has detracted from the value of the botanical 

 papers I have published. And, thirdly, when we consider that the 

 great advantage of an illustration over a description is that the one 

 gives us at a glance the information which we can only obtain from 

 the other by study, we require that each drawing or plate should be 

 as comprehensive as is consistent with clearness and precision. Out- 

 line drawings, or portraits without structural details, often omit the 

 essential characters we are in search of; where details are unaccom- 

 panied by a general outline, we miss a great means of fixing their 

 bearing on our own minds. Structural details may also equally 

 err in being too numerous or too few, on too large or on too small a 

 scale. If the plate is crowded with details of little importance, 

 or which may be readily taken from the general outline, they 

 draw off the attention from those which it is essential should be 

 at once fixed on the mind ; and if enlarged beyond what is neces- 

 sary for clearness, they require so much the more effort to compre- 

 hend them, unless, indeed, they are destined to be hung up on the 

 walls of the lecture room. I believe it to be the case with some 

 drawings of the muscles of vertebrata, or of the internal structure 

 of insects, as I know it to be with those of ovules and other 

 minute parts of flowers of the late Dr. Griffith and others, that, with 

 their very high scientific value, their practical utility is much inter- 

 fered with by the large scale on which they are drawn. A great 

 deal depends also on the arrangement in the plate, always keeping 

 in mind that the object is not to please the eye, but to convey at 

 one view as much as possible of comparative information without 

 producing confusion. 



Biological illustrations in general have much improved in our 

 time. It is true that some of the representations of animals and 

 plants dating from the middle of last century will enter into com- 

 petition with any modern ones as to general outline and facies ; but 

 analytical details were almost universally neglected, and colouring, 

 when attempted, was gaudy and unfaithful. At present, I beheve, 

 we excel in this country in the general artistic effect, as, unfortu- 

 nately also for the naturalist, in the costliness of our best zoological 

 and botanical plates ; the French are remarkable for the selection 



