Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Entomology.djvu/69

Rh with as great zeal as before. A considerable period, however, elapsed (nearly nineteen years) before a second volume appeared, and four others were subsequently 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 8th 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.