9 2 



BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



like Malpighi and Swammerdam, but being a man of unusi 

 patience and manual dexterity, he accomplished notabl 

 results. His great quarto volume is, however, merely a de- 

 scription of the figures, and lacks the insight of a trained 

 anatomist. His skill as a dissector 

 is far ahead of his knowledge of 

 anatomy, and he becomes lost in 

 the details of his subject. 



Extraordinary Quality of the 

 Drawings. — A few figures will serve 

 to illustrate the character of his 

 work, but the reduced reproduc- 

 tions which follow can not do justice 

 to the copper- plates of the original. 

 Fig. 23 gives a view of the. exter- 

 nal appearance of the caterpillar 

 which was dissected. When the 

 skin was removed from the outside 

 the muscles came into view, as 

 shown in Fig. 24. This is a view 

 from the ventral side of the animal. 

 On the left side the more supei 

 ficial muscles show, and on tl 

 right the next deeper layer. 



Fig. 25 shows his dissection of 

 the nerves. In this figure the mus- 

 cles are indicated in outline, and 

 the distribution of nerves to partic- 

 ular, muscles is shown. 



Lyonet's dissection of the head 

 is an extraordinary feat. The en- 

 tire head is not more than a quarter of an inch in diam- 

 eter, but in a series of seven dissections he shows all of the 

 internal organs in the head. Fig. 26 shows two sketches 



Fig. 23. — Larva of the 

 Willow Moth. (From 

 Lyonet's Monograph, 

 I750-) 



