MEMOIR OF DE GEER. 
63 
with as great zeal as before. A considerable period, 
however, elapsed (nearly nineteen years) before a 
second volume appeared, and four others were sub- 
sequently published at short intervals. It is said 
that he sent a copy of each of them as a present to 
all those who had purchased the first. The seventh 
and last volume was not laid before the public till 
after the author's death, an event which took place 
on 8tli March 1778. He had been for many years 
previously afflicted with gout, and it was that disorder 
which terminated his useful and honourable life. 
The numerous and valuable objects in natural history 
which he had collected, were presented by his widow 
to the Academy of Stockholm, and the members have 
placed a marble bust of their benefactor in that part 
of their museum where they are preserved. 
His great work contains descriptions of upwards 
of 1500 species of insects, a general history of their 
manners and metamorphoses, and carefully executed 
engravings, often highly magnified, of their different 
states, and not unfrequently of their separate parts 
both external and internal. These plates amount to 
238, and being of a quarto size, they necessarily 
afford space for the representation of an immense 
number of objects. The contents of the first volume 
have been already mentioned. The second opens 
with an introductory sketch of insects in general ; 
continues the history of moths and butterflies, and 
includes that of bees, ephemeri, and ants. The third 
is devoted to the description of Aphides, Cimices, 
Notonectae, grasshoppers, crickets, dragon-flies, &c. 
