"A local habitation and a name."

This unpromising and apparently hopeless state of the science proved, however, the dawn of its present meridian brightness.

The first attempt at a separate and systematical arrangement of insects subsequent to the times of Aristotle, was made in the ponderous volumes of Ulysses Aldrovandus, who, disregarding the Stagyrite, arranged insects according to the medium they inhabit, as you will see in the subjoined table:

Membranacea Favifica.
Anelytra Non Favifica.
Alata Farinosa.
Pedata Elytrota.
Terrestria Aptera Paucipeda.
Multipeda.
Insecta Apoda.
PedataPaucipeda.
Aquatica Multipeda.
Apoda.

This artificial and meager system, which mixed insects with Annelida, was adopted by Charlton and other authors; and even in the eighteenth century had a patron of great eminence, who, endeavouring to improve upon it, has rendered it still more at variance with nature and Aristotle: I mean the celebrated Vallisnieri, to whom in other respects, though in this he fell behind his age, the science was under great obligations. He divides insects into, 1. Those that inhabit vegetable substances living or dead. 2. Those that inhabit any kind of fluid and in any state. 3. Those that inhabit any earthy or mineral substances, dead bones, or shells. And 4. Those that inhabit living animals[1352].

The work that is usually called Mouffet's Theatrum Insectorum was produced in the present era, and was the fruit of the successive labours of several men of talent. Dr. Edward Wotton and the celebrated Conrade Gesner laid the foundation; whose manuscripts falling into the hands of Dr. Thomas Penny,—an eminent physician and botanist of the Elizabethan age[1353], much devoted to the study of insect,—he upon this foundation meditated raising a superstructure which should include a complete history of these animals; and with this view he devoted the leisure hours of fifteen years of his life to the study of every book then extant that treated of the science either expressly or incidentally, and to the description and figuring of such insects as he could procure; but before he had reduced his materials to order, in 1589 he was snatched away by an untimely death. His unfinished manuscripts were purchased at a considerable price by Mouffet, a contemporary physician of singular learning[1354], who reduced them to order, improved the style, added new matter, and not less than 150 additional figures; and thus having prepared the work for the press, intended to dedicate it to queen Elizabeth[1355]. Fate, however, seemed still to frown upon the undertaking, for before he could commit his labours to the press he also died, and his book remained buried in dust and obscurity till it fell into the hands of Sir Theodore Mayerne, baron d'Aubone, one of the court physicians in the time of Charles I., who at length published it, prefixing a Dedication to Sir William Paddy, baronet, M.D., in 1634; and it was so well received that an English translation appeared twenty-four years afterwards. The work thus repeatedly rescued from destruction was indisputably the most complete entomological treatise that had then appeared. And though the arrangement (in which there is scarcely any attempt at system) is extremely defective, the figures very rude, often incorrect, and sometimes altogether false,—yet as an introduction to the study of insects its value at that day must have been very considerable; and as a copious storehouse of ancient entomological lore, it has not even at present lost its utility.

One of the most remarkable works of the era we are upon was published at Lignitz in the year 1603, by Caspar Schwenckfeeld, a physician of Hirschberg, under the title of Theriotrophium Silesiæ. This was probably the first attempt at a Fauna that ever was made. In it animals are divided into quadrupeds, reptiles, birds, fishes, and insects. The Crustacea, Mollusca, and Zoophytes, are included under fishes. He says of the Spongiæ that they are moved by animalcula which inhabit them[1356]. Did he borrow this observation from Aristotle, or was it made by himself[1357]? It is singular that Linné should never allude to this work. Goedart, who belongs also to this era, is stated to have spent forty years of his life in attending to the proceedings of insects[1358]. But after this long study, his principal use to the science was the improvement he effected in the drawing and engraving of them,—for his figures, though sometimes incorrect and sometimes fabulous, were far superior to those of his predecessors.

3. The Era of Swammerdam and Ray, or of the Metamorphotic System. The great men whose names are here united, as they were cotemporary, so they agreed in founding their respective systems of insects on the same basis. To the former, however, is due the merit of being the first who assumed the metamorphoses of these animals as the basis of a natural arrangement of them; upon which the latter, in conjunction with his lamented friend Willughby, erected that superstructure which opened the door for the present improved state of the science. Swammerdam's system may be thus expressed in modern language:

Class i.Metamorphosiscomplete[1359] = Aptera L.[1360]
ii.———————semicompleteOrthoptera, Hemiptera. Libellulina, Ephemerina[1361].
Insects iii.——————— incompleteColeoptera, Hymenoptera, part of Neuroptera and Diptera[1362].
obtectedLepidoptera[1363].
iv.——————— Ichneumones minuti L.[1364]
Muscidæ, &c[1365].

It was a great point gained in the science to introduce the consideration of the metamorphosis, and to employ it in the extrication of the natural system: for though when taken by itself it will, as in the table just given, lead to an artificial arrangement, it furnishes a very useful clue when the consideration of insects in their perfect state is added to it. The tables contained in the Prolegomena to Ray's Historia Insectorum divide insects into those which undergo no change of form, and those which change their form. The arrangement of the former Αμεταμορφωτα was made by Willughby, who subdivided them into Apoda and Pedata. As the only insects included in the former section were the grubs of Œstri, the remainder being Annelida, they need not be included in our table. I have endeavoured to compress these tables into as small a space as possible, by using the Linnean terms for metamorphosis, and reducing Ray's tribes of Orthoptera, Hemiptera, and Neuroptera to their modern denominations.