Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/70

66 from drawings by Moses Harris, by far the best painter and engraver of such subjects in his day, and likewise a man of original observation, and warmly attached to the study of insects. Dru Drury was a London goldsmith, in good circumstances, who expended much time and money in prosecuting this study. He purchased almost every collection of any value that could be obtained, and contributed largely to defray the expenses of various individuals who were sent to different countries, principally for the purpose of collecting objects of natural history. The collection amassed by such means became of great extent and value; containing upwards of eleven thousand species and varieties, of which little short of three thousand were Lepidoptera. "There may be in Holland," says Drury himself, in one of the printed circulars which he distributed with a view to its sale, "collections more numerous (having in many instances a great number of single species), yet no collection abounds with such a wonderful variety in all the different genera as this. All the specimens of which it is composed are in the highest and most exquisite state of preservation such an extensive collection can be supposed to be, and a very considerable number are unique, such as are to be found in no other cabinet whatever, and of considerable value; many of which, coming from countries exceedingly unhealthy, where the collectors, in procuring them,