These authors were succeeded by Goedart, Swammerdam, Maraldi, Ray, Willughby and Lister, who by their indefatigable exertions, towards the close of the 17th century threw very considerable light upon every branch of natural knowledge. Goedart spent forty years of his life in attending to the proceedings of insects, "daily conversing with insects," as he expresses it, and published in 1662 a work on their natural history; but the plates with which it is embellished form the best part of it. +Swammerdam+ published his celebrated work, "A General History of Insects," in 4to, in 1669: a more enlarged edition in two volumes folio, containing the history of bees, was afterwards published in 1737, under the auspices of Boerhaave, from the manuscript of Swammerdam. Those readers who have patience to wade through these tedious volumes, will find it rewarded by the attainment of much curious information. +Maraldi+ published in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences for 1712, his account of the manners, genius, and labours of the bee. He is said to have been the inventor of glass hives, and to that invention may be attributed the success of his inquiries. Swammerdam founded his system upon what has been called the metamorphotic basis; and +Ray+, in conjunction with his friend +Willughby+, whom he calls the profoundest of naturalists and the most amiable and virtuous of men, erected his superstructure on the same basis. In the _Historia Insectorum_ of Ray, evidently the joint production of himself and +Willughby+, especial attention is paid to the Hymenoptera: it contains various interesting observations on their manners and characters; and the descriptions, in which he was assisted by the use of very powerful microscopes, are concise and well drawn. +Dr. Martin Lister+, in an appendix to Ray's work, and in various other writings also, contributed materially to elucidate the science of entomology. +Madame Merian+ likewise deserves well, for her industrious pursuit of this subject, particularly for her beautiful illustration of the metamorphoses of insects in Surinam. The French natural historian +Reaumur+ stands prominent among the students of entomology, for the unsurpassed enthusiasm and accuracy with which he has investigated some of its most intricate parts. To him the genus Apis is under greater obligations perhaps than to any entomologist either of ancient or modern times. See his immortal work, "Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Insectes," in 6 vols. 4to. 1732-1744.