11 



A copy of this book I exhibit this evening. It is the first 

 work with coloured illustrations of English insects, and 

 contains such Lepidopterous insects as the author and his 

 friends reared from caterpillars, exhibiting them picturesquely 

 on the proper food plants. They are highly coloured by hand, 

 and show what good colours were obtainable in those days. 



Albin dedicated the j^lates to various persons, who bore 

 the expense of the plates, and the entire work to Her Royal 

 Highness the Princess of Wales. 



In the jjreface he informs the reader that Mr. Dandridge 

 employed him in painting caterpillars ; and that he had 

 painted ' a lot of these and flys for Mr. How, and likewise 

 several things relating to Natural History for Sir Hans 

 Sloane," and that the Duchess Dowager of Beaufort was the 

 first to persuade him to undertake the work. This excellent 

 lady encouraged him by procuring subscriptions from persons of 

 the first quality. He pathetically adds: — "Whilst this good 

 lady lived it went on apace, and I am persuaded had been 

 finished long since, if it had pleased God to have spared her, 

 but after the loss of my patroness, subscriptions coming in 

 slowly, and my circumstances (having a great family to 

 provide for) not being able to carry it on without, retarded 

 it." He criticises his predecessors as follows: — "All my 

 drawings I have copied exactly after the life, having observed 

 it a great fault in those who have gone before me in this way, 

 that they either did not look often enough at their pattern, 

 or effected to make the picture outdo nature." He seems 

 to have used the microscope, for in his concluding remarks he 

 says — " The colours of moths and butterflies which to our 

 eyes seem as dust, if they be examined by the microscope 

 every particle of them is a perfect feather. From the whole 

 we cannot but conclude that they are the work of Infinite 

 Power, and not the effect of mere chance, or the product of 

 corruption. " 



This peculiar term " product of corruption " is due to a 

 theory prevalent at that time, that insects were spontaneously 

 generated from decaying vegetable matter. 



