HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 4.29 
living or dead. 2. Those that inhabit any kind of fluid 
and in any state. 3. Those that inhabit any earthy or 
mineral substances, dead bones, or shells. And 4. Those 
that inhabit living animals *. 
The work that is usually called Mouffet’s Theatrum 
Insectorum was produced in the present era, and was the 
fruit of the successive labours of several men of talent. 
Dr. Edward Wotton and the celebrated Conrade Ges- 
ner laid the foundation ; whose manuscripts falling into 
the hands of Dr. Thomas Penny,—an eminent physician 
and botanist of the Elizabethan age, much devoted to 
the study of insects,—he upon this foundation meditated 
raising a superstructure which should include a complete 
history of these animals; and with this view he devoted 
the leisure hours of fifteen years of his life to the study 
of every work then extant that treated of the science 
either expressly or incidentally, and to the description 
and figuring of such insects as he could procure: but be- 
fore he had reduced his materials to order, in 1589 he 
was snatched away by an untimely death. His unfinished 
manuscripts were purchased at a considerable price by 
Mouffet, a contemporary physician of singular learning‘, 
who reduced them to order, improved the style, added 
new matter, and not less than 150 additional figures; and 
thus having prepared the work for the press, intended 
to dedicate it to Queen Elizabeth*. Fate, however, 
seemed still to frown upon the undertaking, for before 
he could commit his labours to the press he also died; 
and the work remained buried in dust and obscurity till 
| Esperienz. ed Osserv. i. 42—. 
> Pulteney’s Sketches of Botany in England, 1. 86. 
© Theatr. Insect Epist. Ded. 1. a bid. 
