58 MEMOIR OF DRURY. 



on the same subject to Mr. Ash ton Lever (after- 

 wards Sir Ashton), one of the most extensive col- 

 lectors of natural curiosities that ever lived, as well 

 as to General Rengers and other individuals ; but it 

 would seem to be as difficult to dispose of a collec- 

 tion of this kind as it is to make it ; no one offered 

 an adequate sum, and Drury retained the objects 

 which he had amassed with so much care and 

 labour, beside him to the last, never relaxing in his 

 endeavours to augment their number and obtain 

 more perfect specimens. Every foreign entomo- 

 logist of note, who visited this country, took the 

 opportunity of examining Mr. Drury's Collection, 

 and permission was given with a degree of frank- 

 ness and liberality, which on some occasions were 

 turned to the owner's disadvantage. Several unique 

 specimens, for example, were clandestinely figured 

 by other authors, at the very time Drury's own 

 work was in progress. * Fabricius studied the Col- 



of Mrs. Allan of Glen, in Peebles-shire, who obtained them at 

 a price very little inferior to that here set on them. 



* Drury complains of General Rengers for allowing Cramer 

 to figure several new species which he had sent to him, and 

 designed to make public in his own work. " This, I confess, 

 appears a little hard on my side, and puts me in mind of a 

 man's putting a knife into the hands of another in order to 

 cut his own throat. I must entreat you not to let him figure 

 any more that have been in my collection. He cannot want 

 subjects among so many grand collections as Holland abounds 

 with ; therefore I would wish not to receive any further injury 

 from him." Stoll retorts this charge on the part of Cramer, in 

 his Supplement (Preface, p. v.). Neither party appears de- 



