92 



BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



like Malpighi and Swammerdam, but being a man of unusual 

 patience and manual dexterity, he accomplished notable 

 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 super- 

 ficial muscles show, and on the 

 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, 



i75o) 



