50 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 
must confess that their work in the field of insects was. 
largely incidental. 
By the middle of the seventeenth century we find 
a growing activity among a new school of biologists who 
clearly recognized the inadequacy of their predecessors’ 
philosophy and methods in the present growth of the 
biological sciences. This period was marked by a fur- 
ther extension of the general knowledge of insects 
through descriptions and particularly through a new art, 
delineation. As examples, we should mention the plates 
drawn by Madam Merian and the paintings of Geodart, 
both being superior to any previous attempts. The sys- 
tems of Swammerdam and of Ray were serious efforts 
to erect a more modern classification for the identifica- 
tion of insects. The introduction of the microscope into 
the science by Leeuwenhoeck, Lister, and Hooke opened 
a vast new field of research in minute anatomy. Mal- 
pighi, in fact, produced a justly famous work with the 
aid of this instrument—his anatomy of the silkworm. 
Another Italian, Francis Redi, at this time attacked and 
overthrew in the scientific mind, at least, the doctrine of 
equivocal generation for practically all organisms. The 
later researches of Pasteur on the microorganisms dis- 
posed of a group beyond the technique of Redi. The 
study of the life histories and the metamorphoses of 
insects had as a patron that most careful, accurate, and 
critical observer—Reaumur, who, with the grace and 
excellent diction characteristic of the Frenchman, re- 
corded his observations in attractive form for the popular 
mind. He might justly be criticised for paying no atten- 
tion to systematic arrangement or classificatory values 
in his writings. We find the same lack of appreciation 
of taxonomy in a later period in the elegant writings of 
his countryman, Buffon. 
One of the most important developments of his time, 
however, was the classification of Ray which was in a 
measure an expansion of Swammerdam’s system. Its 
feature was the employment of a definite character in 
the separation of the orders. It was founded on the com- 
pleteness of the metamorphosis. Although in many 
respects unsatisfactory and even inferior to that of Aris- 
totle, it pointed out the path to a more satisfactory sys- 
