34 MEMOIR OP 



represented has rendered it useful to the hotanist*, 

 and the student of entomology may still refer to it 

 for information on many points which he will not 

 easily find elucidated elsewhere. It has been 

 already mentioned that her principal object was to 

 figure the larvae and pupae of lepidopterous insects, 

 and these accordingly will be found to constitute by 

 far the most valuable portion of the book, the 

 drawing and engraving of these being obviously much 

 more carefully executed than in the case of the com- 

 plete insect. But in order that the nature of the work 

 may be more fully understood, it will be proper to 

 describe a few of the more remarkable plates in 

 detail ; and in doing so, we shall occasionally avail 

 ourselves of the observations made on them by tha 

 late Rev. Lansdown Guilding, who was eminently 

 qualified to form an estimate of their character, not 

 only by his skill as a draughtsman and naturalist, 

 but likewise by his residence for a time in a country 

 similar to that whose productions they were de- 

 signed to illustrate t. 



The two first plates are more remarkable for the 

 plants which they exhibit than the insects, the 

 former being the well known pine (Bromelia 

 ananas, L.), first in a state of inflorescence, with 



* To commemorate Madam Merian's services in this de- 

 partment, although it was with her a secondary object, Swartz 

 has named after her his genus Meriana, which comprehends 

 two species of exotic plants, belonging to the class clecandria 

 and order monogynia. 



t See Loudons Mag. of Nat. Hist. vol. vii. p. 335. 



