Article ID: CBB001251457

Attending to Insects: Francis Willughby and John Ray (2012)

unapi

Francis Willughby and John Ray were at the forefront of the natural history of insects in the second half of the seventeenth century. Willughby in particular had a deep interest in insects' metamorphosis, behaviour and diversity, an interest that he passed on to his friend and mentor Ray. By examining Willughby's contributions to John Wilkins's Essay towards a Real Character (1668) and Ray's Methodus insectorum (1705) and Historia insectorum (1710), which contained substantial material from Willughby's manuscript history of insects, one may reconstruct how the two naturalists studied insects, their innovative use of metamorphosis in insect classification, and the sheer diversity of insect forms that they described on the basis of their own collections and those of London and Oxford virtuosi. Imperfect as it was, Historia insectorum was recognized by contemporaries as a significant contribution to the emerging field of entomology.

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Authors & Contributors
Smith, Paul J.
Charmantier, Isabelle
Dorothy Johnston
Wragge-Morley, Alexander
Roos, Anna Marie Eleanor
Doherty, Meghan C.
Concepts
Natural history
Scientific illustration
Fishes
Ornithology
Rhetoric in scientific discourse
Biographies
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
Places
Great Britain
England
London (England)
Europe
Institutions
Royal Society of London
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