MEMOIR OF SWAMMERDAM. 
35 
powerful glasses. The after part of the day, and 
usually no small portion of the night, were spent in 
registering his observations and writing out a detailed 
account of them, as well as in finishing his drawings. 
Such was his enthusiasm that he often used to wish 
that he had but one year of perpetual light and heat, 
to enable him to work without interruption. The 
whole of this laborious task, too, was executed while 
in a state of great bodily infirmity, and amid mental 
distractions arising from a cause to which we shall 
have immediate occasion to advert. Of the treatise 
resulting from these exertions, Boerhaave affirms, 
that all the ages from the commencement of na- 
tural history to his time, have produced nothing 
equal — nothing to compare with it. It is, certainly 
deserving of the highest commendation for inde- 
fatigable research, minute and accurate descrip- 
tion, and elaborate delineations of internal organs. 
Indeed it may be said to have laid the foundation 
of an accurate and philosophical history of the Bee, 
and at the same time to have contributed largely to 
advance our knowledge of the structure of insects 
in general. When we consider how many interesting 
particulars Swammerdam brought to light, it will not 
appear surprising that several singular facts escaped 
his observation. The comparatively ample knowledge 
we now possess of the subject is due to the accumu- 
lated labours of many different individuals, and it 
might have been much more limited than it is had it 
not been for the happy expedient of employing glass 
hives, a thing which had not been thought of in Swam- 
