XV111 INTRODUCTION. 



These authors were succeeded by Goedart, 

 Swammerdam, Maraldi, Ray, Willughby 

 and Lister, who by their indefatigable ex- 

 ertions, towards the close of the 17th century 

 threw very considerable light upon every 

 branch of natural knowledge. GOEDART 

 spent forty years of his life in attending to 

 the proceedings of insects, "daily conversing 

 with insects," as he expresses it, and published 

 in 1662 a work on their natural history; but 

 the plates with which it is embellished form 

 the best part of it. SWAMMERDAM published 

 his celebrated work, "A General History of 

 Insects," in 4to, in 1669: a more enlarged 

 edition in two volumes folio, containing the 

 history of bees, was afterwards published 

 in 1737, under the auspices of Boerhaave, 

 from the manuscript of Swammerdam. Those 

 readers who have patience to wade through 

 these tedious volumes, will find it rewarded 

 by the attainment of much curious information. 

 MARALDI published in the Memoirs of the 

 Royal Academy of Sciences for 1712, his 

 account of the manners, genius, and labours 

 of the bee. He is said to have been the in- 

 ventor of glass hives, and to that invention 



