230 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



The following year he travelled in Spain and 

 Italy, and in these countries he made an elaborate 

 study of the silk-worm, which doubtless led him 

 to the study of insects in general. He not only 

 wrote a poem on the silkworm, but collected notes 

 on the natural history of the Insect a. These 

 were published thirty years after his death under 

 the title " Insect orum sive Minimorum Animalium 

 Theatrum ad vivum expressis Iconibus super 

 quingentis illustratum." An English translation 

 entitled the " Theater of Insects " was published 

 as an appendix to Topsell's " History of Four- 

 Footed Beasts and Serpents " in 1658. 



Moffett was a many-sided man of science, 

 a practising physician, a traveller who at 

 Copenhagen had known Tycho Brahe, a courtier 

 who took part in both diplomatic and military 

 service abroad, a poet and writer of epitaphs and 

 epigrams, a keen critic of diet, and for some time 

 a member of the House of Commons. 



A friend of Moffett's was Thomas Penny, who 

 entered Trinity College in 1550, and later became 

 not only a Prebendary of St. Paul's, but a sound 

 botanist and entomologist. Like so many men 

 of the time, Penny travelled extensively on the 

 Continent. He visited Majorca, lived in the 



