180 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS 



I 



here the history of the ephemera, the dragon-fly, the 

 bee, the gnat, ants, the rhinoceros-beetle, the tortoise- 

 shell butterfly, the cheesehopper, the gall-insects, the 

 hermit-crab, the water-flea, the tadpole, the snail, the 

 sepia and many more. Under each we find the life- 

 history, the anatomy down to the last detail visible by 

 Swammerdam's microscope, and in many cases observa- 

 tions upon allied forms. No delineations so exact and 

 beautiful as these appeared until Lyonet, seventy years 

 after the death of Swammerdam, produced his Anatomy 

 of the Goat-moth. The Bihlia Natures is of permanent 

 interest as a collection of facts, as a monument of 

 industry and sagacity, and as a measure of the high 

 level which biological knowledge had attained in the 

 latter half of the seventeenth century. 



We have little information respecting the time and 

 manner of production of the beautiful plates which 

 accompany the Bihlia Naturce. It is not easy to under- 

 stand how Swammerdam, amidst the distresses of his 

 last years, should have found money to pay for fifty folio 

 plates. Did Th^venot find the money ? 



Swammerdam bequeathed all his manuscripts and 

 drawings to his friend Melchisedec Th^venot. The 

 painter Joubert bought the papers from Th^venot's 

 heirs, and sold them again to the anatomist Duverney, 

 who kept them for many years, talking about a French 

 edition, but doing nothing. Forty years after Swam- 

 merdam's death his chief contributions to natural history 

 still remained in manuscript, their very existence known 

 only to a few. At length the famous Dutch physician, 

 Boerhaave, came to know that Swammerdam's papers 

 were still preserved in Paris. He begged his friend 

 William Sherard, who was about to visit France, to 

 find out all about them. It was discovered that the 



