WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 203 



An incident peculiarly significant of popular ideas occurred more 

 than a hundred years before this statement by Kirby was published. 

 A record is found in Moses Harris' "The Aurelian " (1776), fac- 

 ing his plate of a butterfly that he called " the Glanvil Fritillary." 

 Harris' statement is as follows : 



This Fly took its Name from the ingenious Lady Glanvil whose Memory had 

 like to have suffered for her Curiosity. Some Relations that was disappointed 

 by her Will, attempted to set it aside by Acts of Lunacy, for they suggested 

 that none but those who were deprived of their Senses, would go in Pursuit 

 of Butterflies. Her Relations and Legatees subpoenaed Dr. Sloan and Mr. Ray 

 to support her Character. The last Gentleman went to Exeter and on the Tryal 

 satisfied the Judge and Jury of the Lady's laudable Inquiry into the wonderful 

 Works of the Creation, and established her Will. 



We may approximate the date of this trial. Ray died in 1705, and 

 had been invalided during his later years. Sir Hans Sloan was not 

 knighted until 1716. His degree of M. D. was given him in 1683. 

 He is referred to by Harris as " Dr. Sloan." It is therefore safe to 

 suppose that the trial at Exeter occurred between 1683 and 1700. 



Going back to the early part of the nineteenth century, Mr. H. J. 

 Carter of Australia, formerly President of the Linnean Society of 

 New South Wales, has called my attention to the article " Ento- 

 mology " in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of 1828. There the condi- 

 tion at that time is well expressed in the following words : " There is 

 not, j>erhaps, any branch of natural history the study of which has 

 been so generally regarded with indifference and contempt. The 

 insect hunter is not infrequently treated with ridicule and his pur- 

 suit branded as frivolous." Mr. Carter is responsible for the Aus- 

 tralian story that not many years ago a naval officer who was also a 

 distinguished entomologist narrowly escaped being locked up by the 

 Gosford police as a person of unsound mind. 



One of the old writers mentioned in a preceding paragraph was 

 Johann Wilhelm Meigen, a remarkable worker on the Diptera, known 

 to all subsequent workers in systematic entomology. I am reverting 

 to him because his life was lived at that very interesting period of 

 European history, 1764 to 1845, and because he lived at Stolberg 

 near Aachen in the center of the revolutionary happenings of the 

 Napoleonic wars, a region which was first German, then French, and 

 much later once more German ; and also because a rather full and 

 very charming account of his life was written by a fellow townsman, 

 J. A. Foerster, which should be read by all entomologists who know 

 German. Apparently it has never been translated into English. It 

 will be found in the Stettiler Entomologische Zeitung for 1846, pages 



