iii. 



has been much honoured at Bologna, where he died in 1605. The great 

 zoological work, which he left imperfect was finished after his death ; and the 

 first attempt at a separate and systematical arrangement of insects subsequent 

 to the times of Aristotle, was made in the ponderous volumes. From him 

 Linnseus borrowed the name Polyehloros, which he bestowed on the Large 

 Tortoise-shell Butterfly. About the same time botany began to be attended 

 to in our own country. Turner published his "Herbal" in 1551, and in 

 1597 was printed the first edition of Gerard's " Herbal." 



The work that is usually called Mouffet's "Theatrum Insectorum" was 

 produced in the seventeenth century, and was the fruit of the successive 

 labours of several men of talent. Dr. Edward Wotton and the celebrated 

 Conrad Gesner laid the foundation ; whose manuscripts falling into the hands 

 of Dr. Thomas Penery — an eminent physician and botanist of the Elizabethan 

 age, much devoted to the study of insects — he upon this foundation 

 mediated raising a superstructure which should include a complete history 

 of these animals, but in 1589 he was snatched away by an untimely death. 

 His unfinished manuscripts were purchased at a considerable price by Thomas 

 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, but before he could commit his labours to the press he also died. 

 The work remained buried in dust and obscurity till it fell into the hands of 

 Sir Theodore Mayerne, one of the court physicians in the time of Charles I., 

 who at length published it in 1634; and it was so well received that in the 

 year 1658, Edward Topsel published an English translation of it. It is the 

 first entomological publication extant in the British Isles, and is embellished 

 with numerous wood engravings, accompanied by long, tedious, and some- 

 times superstitious descriptions of the articles they represent, which are 

 systematically divided into two books and forty-two caputs. The 14th 

 caput treats " De Papilionilibus," and occupies above twenty pages, in the 

 margins of which are inserted, in an indented manner, 112 woodcuts of the 

 rudest execution imaginable ; yet, for the most part, perfectly intelligible to 

 any person tolerably skilled in the science of entomology. In it the moths 

 are called nocturnal butterflies, and the butterflies diurnal butterflies. 

 Amongst the latter, one can recognise the following .Critish species : — 

 Swallow-tail, Scarce Swallow-tail, Orange-tip, Brimstone, Green-veined White, 

 Clouded Yellow,' Common Blue, Wall, Speckled Wood, Painted Lady, Bed 

 Admiral, Large Tortoise-shell, Small Tortoise-shell, Peacock, Silver Spotted 

 Fritiilary, and the Silver Spotted Skipper. 



One of the most remarkable works of the century we are upon was pub- 



