12 



He publishes a long list of subsciibers, which shows the 

 influence of his friend the Duchess, or the interest taken in 

 the work by the aristocracy, as it includes Dukes, Duchesses. 

 Earls, Lords, &c., His Grace the Duke of Westminster and 

 the Right Honourable the Earl of Derby figuring side by 

 side ; several gardeners, apothecaries, chymists, members of 

 the Bar. and " Mr. John Marshall, maker of optick glasses 

 to his Majesty, at the Archemides in Ludgate Street." I take 

 this to mean spectacles, or is it possible that His Majesty 

 was a. microscopist ■ 



Contemporary with Albin, John Swammerdam appears to 

 have been working in Holland, diving deeply into the 

 mysteries of the science, his strong point being dissection 

 and anatomy. He was evidently the first to have studied the 

 anatomy of insects, and to have used a microscope for their 

 dissection. That lie was a keen observer, and a systematist of 

 the most advanced ideas, is evident by his argument on the 

 metamorphosis of insects, in which he was able to trace the 

 perfect insect throughout all its mutations. His biographer, 

 Herman Boerhaave, says: — " His singular sagacity in stripping; 

 off the skin of caterpillars deserves particular notice. This 

 he effected by letting them drop by their threads into scalding 

 water^ and suddenly withdrawing them, for by this means 

 the epidermis peeled off very easily, and when this was done, 

 he put them into distilled vinegar and spirit of wine, mixed 

 together in equal parts, which, by giving firmness to the 

 parts, gave an opportunity of separating them without any 

 damage to the viscera, so that, by this contrivance, the nymph 

 could be shewn wrapped up in the caterpillar, and the butterfly 

 in the nymph." 



Previous to this, Mouft'et, following Aristotle and all 

 previous writers, had written : — ' It is very remarkable that 

 in this metamorphosis, which is performed by means of an 

 aurelia, the silkworms head becomes the butterfly's tail, and 

 the head of this last the tail of the foimer, and the same 

 thing happens in all other caterpillars that become Aurelije." 

 Swammerdam seems to have gi-asped one of the great 



