40 Biblwgrwphy. 



tion by Aristotle, as the great stepping-stone in zoological 

 progress. I never open the grand work of Swammerdam, with 

 its admirable illustrations, without feelings of the most pro- 

 found respect and admiration. Though a very pioneer in 

 anatomy, and one of the founders of Natural Science, and 

 possessed of lenses of very inferior quality, yet he wrote 

 with an accuracy, and illustrated even minute tissues with a 

 correctness and elegance that well might put to the blush many 

 a modern writer. 



Eay also gave special attention to Hymenoptera, and was 

 much aided by Willoughby and Lister. At this time Harvey, 

 so justly noted for his discovery of the circulation of the blood, 

 announced his celebrated dictum, "Omnia ex ovo" — all life 

 from eggs — which was completely established by the noted 

 Italians, Redi and Malpighi. Toward the middle of the 18th 

 century, the great Linnaeus — "the brilliant Star of the North" 

 — ^published his "System Naturae," and threw a flood of light 

 on the whole subject of natural history. His division of in- 

 sects was founded upon presence, or absence, and charac- 

 teristics, of wings. This, like Swammerdam's basis, was too 

 narrow, yet his conclusions were remarkably correct. Lin- 

 naeus is noted for his accurate descriptions, and especially for 

 his gift of the binomial method of naming plants and animals, 

 giving in the name, the genus and species, as. Apis mellifica. 

 He was also the first to introduce classes and orders, as we now 

 understand them. When we consider the amount and charac- 

 ter of the work of the great Swede, we can but place him 

 among the first, if not as the first, of naturalists. Contempo- 

 rary with Linnaeus (also written Linne) was Geofl'ry, who did 

 valuable work in defining new genera. In the last half of the 

 century appeared the great work of a master in entomology, 

 DeGeer, who based his arrangement of insects on the charac- 

 ter of wings and jaws, and thus discovered another of nature's 

 keys to aid him in unlocking her mysteries. Kirby .well says : 

 ' 'He united in hinlself the highest merit of almost every de- 

 partment of entomology." As a scientist, an anatomist, a 

 physiologist, and as the observant historian of the habits and 

 economy of insects, he is above all praise. What a spring of 

 self-improvement, enjoyment ^nd public usefulness, is such an 

 ability to observe as was possessed by the great DeGeer. 



Contemporary with Linnaeus and DeGeer, was R6aumur, of 



