4 



The NATrp.ALTST. 



Szc brougM visitors from all parts, and his correspondence wai5 

 carried on with the learned men of every nation. When we consider 

 that he accomplished all this while ohtaining his living as a medical 

 man, that he was always of delicate health, and died under fifty years 

 of age, his achievements seem tnily wonderful. He died in the scene 

 of his many laborious studies, amongst the objects he had spent his 

 lifetime in collecting — being carried at his own request to a couch 

 prepared for him in his museum. Gesner's "Natural History" 

 contained all that was previously known relative to the history of 

 animals: he filled up many gaps by his own personal observations, 

 and thus completed five large folios with merely the Natural History 

 of the Yertebrata ; before he reached the Invertebrata, however, death 

 carried him off. a.d. 1505. Our poor insects were not destined to 

 come to the front just yet, for Gesner's posthumous papers on the 

 subject fell into the hands of the well-known Joachim Kamerarius, 

 with whom we leave them for the present. 



About this time several other books on Natural History and 

 Botany were published, one or two of which contained some slight 

 notices bearing on the objects of our study. 



The various books in which we may look with hope of success for 

 any mention of insects may be, for convenience, classed under the 

 following heads : — 1st, Medical works ; 2nd, General histories of 

 various countries, including books of travel ; 3rd, Works on Natural 

 HistoiT generally ; and lastly, books on certain species of insects, 

 conspicuous for their utility or otherwise. Under the first head — 

 medical— we find many writers noticing insects briefly, mostly how- 

 ever in connection with their injurious effects on the bodies which^ 

 they wound or sting, and the remedies for such attacks ; and many) 

 insects were also then used in medicine. Chief among such works 

 is the "Materia Medica" of Dioscoeides of Anazarba, the first] 

 printed edition of whose works was not, however, published till 

 Conrad Gesner edited it at Frankfort a.d. 1549. ^ Then followed 

 Mathioli's " Materia Medica," first published in fol, at Venice, a.d.,' 

 1554. This great Italian physician was much prone to credulity, yet 

 his work was of long reputation. Also in Jodoc Willich'si 

 " Anatomic," ^ published in the same year, we find a dialogue or' 

 locusts. 



In the next class, including general histories of countries 

 and books of travel, we find the works of the great doctor and 



(2) Another edition in 8vo, Parisiis, 1549. 



(3) Dialogus de Locustis in his Anatomie, 8vo, Argent,, 1544. 



