INTRODUCTION. 65 



text is so meagre, and an unworthy accompaniment 

 of the plates which it professes to explain. For 

 this, however, we are not to blame the writer, Cas- 

 par Commelin, whose Latinity is excellent; the 

 lady, engrossed w 7 ith her drawings, had failed to 

 supply him with the requisite materials. 



As an entomological artist, very few have excelled 

 Roesel, and at the time his work appeared (1746 — 

 1761) it was unequalled for the truth and beauty 

 of its figures. These were chiefly devoted to the 

 illustration of the other tribes, although not a few 

 foreign moths are also represented, accompanied, in 

 several instances, with figures of the caterpillar and 

 chrysalis. The faithfulness and delicacy of these 

 delineations must have exercised a very beneficial 

 effect on the arts as applied to this subject, by 

 affording a high standard wherewith subsequent 

 artists might compare their productions. Roesel 

 engraved the plates, as well as executed the draw- 

 ings, with his own hand, — a combination of skill 

 which seems almost indispensable to high excellence 

 in this difficult department. 



A most valuable contribution to the history of 

 exotic Lepidoptera appeared in 1 770, when Drury 

 published the first volume of his Illustrations of 

 Natural History. A second appeared in 1 773 ; the 

 third and last in 1782. The whole work contains 

 representations of a great number of crepuscular and 

 nocturnal Lepidoptera, many of which w 7 ere previ- 

 ously unknown, and a few continue to be unique 

 even to the present day. Most of the figures are 



E 



