34 



The Nattjealist. 



letterpress, and which in the copy in the British Museum forms part 

 of a larger work on Natural History generally, — is certainly well 

 described by the latter part of its title, for the clearness of the figures 

 is a most conspicuous feature. The part on insects contains fourteen 

 plates, and was published at Frankfort a.d. 1630. 



We must now turn our attention again to the M.SS. left by Thos. 

 Muffet. According to A. Wood, in his " Athenae Oxoniensis," a 

 few imperfect copies of the "Theatrum" were published by Laur. 

 Scholzius in 1598, but of these I can find no mention elsewhere. Be 

 that as it may, they were imperfect copies, and only one or two were 

 printed, so the M.SS. practically lay by idle until they came into the 

 hands of Sir Theod. de May erne, who published them at London in 

 1634, under Muffet's original title of " Insectorum sive minimorum 

 ANIMALIUM Theatrum." Thus wc sce, with the appearance in print 

 of this book, Conrad Gesner's writings on insects at last saw the 

 light of day, about a century after their origin, and after passing 

 through many vicissitudes, having changed hands as many as five 

 times. Such was the struggle this study went through in its early 

 days. 



Thomas Muffet has well been called the father of Entomology, and 

 certainly he did a great deal for this particular branch of Natural 

 Science, for his book is most comprehensive, containing as it does a 

 history of each order of insects, and recapitulating everything that 

 had been discovered on the subject previously. We must remember, 

 also, that to compile a work like Muffet's was no light task in his 

 day ; it would no doubt require endless research in numerous foreign 

 libraries to obtain the various authors he quotes from — for books, as 

 we know, were very few and far between in those times, very different 

 from our own, when we can get almost any volume we may desire in 

 our large public libraries. Muffet enters most thoroughly and 

 heartily into his work ; he is not content merely to record the few 

 bare facts he could glean from previous authors concerning the 

 different species of insects, as other writers had done before, but in 

 each case, by means of his own and his friends' observations, he 

 strives to arrive at a practical reason and definite use for all the 

 phenomena he observes. True, his conclusions may not have been 

 entirely correct, but even then they formed a basis from which 

 subsequent investigators could start with additions and corrections, 

 till at last the amount of certain knowledge which we possess at the 

 present day has been arrived at. I may here mention a statement of 

 Muffet's which, though a gross error, has had a long-lived reputation. 



