RISE AND PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. 47 



Europe. No better evidence of these facts can be 

 adduced than the rapid increase of new works in 

 this department towards the middle of the last cen- 

 tury. Entomology, in the following year, was en- 

 riched with the most inimitable delineations of insects 

 which this or any age has produced; and which 

 form the plates to that beautiful work by Sepp (in 

 Dutch) on the insects of the Low Countries.* This 

 publication came out in numbers, and perfect sets 

 are now exceedingly rare : those portions we possess 

 relate exclusively to the Lepidoptera, each species 

 being delineated, in all its several transformations, 

 from the egg to the perfect insect : the drawing of 

 the subjects is chaste, elegant, and cannot be excelled 

 for accuracy ; while the style of engraving is ad- 

 mirably suited to express all the softness of the 

 original drawings. These plates, in fact, have never 

 been equalled, far less excelled, by any of the most 

 celebrated in modern times. Sepp undertook, in 

 like manner, to figure all the birds of his native 

 country, but his talents were quite unsuited to this 

 department; and his figures have all the stiffness 

 and roughness of badly preserved dried specimens. 

 The works of Sepp, who is the Van Huysum of our 

 science, are more illustrative than scientific, while that 

 of Scopoli, on the entomology of Carniola-}-, which 

 soon followed, is purely descriptive : he does not, 

 however, implicitly follow Linnaeus in the names of 



* Sepp. Beschouwing der Wonderen Gods in de Minst- 

 geachte Schepzelen of Nederlandsche Insecten. Amsterdam, 

 1762, &c. 3 vols. 4to. 



-J* J. A. Scopoli. Entomologia Carniolica, exhibens Insecta 

 Carniolia? indigena. Vindobona?, 1763. 1 vol. 8vo. 



