652 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



Georo-ia, in the prosecution of his scientific labors, his head-quarters were 

 at Jacksonborough, then the county seat of Scriven County. Here his 

 work on the Lepidoptera of Georgia was largely prepared. All traces of 

 this old town have now passed away." It is supposed that he also em- 

 ployed himself as a school-master in this place, but this is purely traditional, 

 and his occasional bungling, not to say ungrammatical, sentences rather 

 indicate a lack of schooling on his own part. What we certainly know 

 reo-ardino- him is that he entered into relations with John Francillon, a 

 silversmith in the Strand, London, who had a famous collection of insects 

 and an extensive entomological correspondence. Francillon undertook to 

 supply subscribers with drawings of insects and plants by Abbot, as well 

 as with specimens, the latter of which, says Swainson, "were certainly 

 the finest that have ever been transmitted as articles of commerce to this 

 country ; they were always sent home expanded, even the most minute ; 

 and he was so watchful and indefatigable in his researches, that he contrived 

 to breed nearly the whole of the Lepidoptera. His general price for a 

 box-full was sixpence each specimen ; which was certainly not too much, 

 considering the beauty and high perfection of all the individuals. Abbot, 

 however, was not a mere collector. Every moment of time he could 

 possibly devote from his field researches was employed in making finished 

 drawings of the larva, pupa, and perfect insect of every lepidopterous 

 species, as well as of the plant upon which it fed. These drawings are so 

 beautifully chaste and wonderfully correct, that they were coveted by every 

 one." It would appear from a note in Kirby and Spence's Introduction 

 to Entomology (5th ed., iii : 148) that "the ingenious Mr. Abbot" also 

 knew the art of inflating caterpillar skins, and dealt in them tlu'ough 

 Francillon. There still exist in various places, principally in the British 

 Museum, but also at Oxford, Paris and Zurich, and in this country at 

 Boston, large series of his drawings of insects and plants. Those in the 

 British Museum are arranged in seventeen stout quarto volumes, bound in 

 red morocco ; each volume has a printed title page and is dated 1792 to 

 1804, the dates no doubt between which they were purchased for the 

 Museum through Francillon from Abbot, and which probably indicated 

 the period of his greatest activity in America. In Boston two similar vol- 

 umes 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 His- 

 tory Society, where it may now be seen. The other volume is a collec- 

 tion, 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 sixteenth volume of the British Museum series, there is a 



* Mr. Oemler of Savannah and Mr. in Abbot's notes as sending bim specimens 

 "LeCompte" [LeConte] are both mentioned found in their gardens to rear and paint. 



