All that we know of Malpighi commands our respect. Precise and rapid in his work, keen to discover points of real interest, never losing himself in details, but knowing when he had done enough, he stands pre-eminent in the crowd of minute anatomists, who are generally faithful in a few things, but very unfit to be made rulers over many things. The last distinct glimpse which we get of him is interesting. Dr. Tancred Robinson, writing to John Ray, from Geneva, April 18th, 1684, tells how he met Malpighi at Bologna. They talked of the origin of fossils, and Malpighi could not contain himself about Martin Lister’s foolish hypothesis that fossils were sports of nature. “Just as I left Bononia,” he continues, “I had a lamentable spectacle of Malpighi’s house all in flames, occasioned by the negligence of his old wife. All his pictures, furniture, books, and manuscripts were burnt. I saw him in the very heat of the calamity, and methought I never beheld so much Christian patience and philosophy in any man before; for he comforted his wife, and condoled nothing but the loss of his papers, which are more lamented than the Alexandrian Library, or Bartholine’s Bibliothece, at Copenhagen.”[3] [3] Correspondence of John Ray, p. 142. _Swammerdam on the Honey Bee._ Swammerdam’s great posthumous work, the Biblia Naturæ, contains about a dozen life-histories of Insects worked out in more or less detail. Of these the May-fly (published during the author’s life-time, in 1675) is the most famous; that on the Honey Bee the most elaborate. Swammerdam was ten years younger than Malpighi, and knew Malpighi’s treatise on the Silkworm--a not inconsiderable advantage. His working-life as a naturalist comes within the ten years between 1663 and 1673; and this short space of time was darkened by anxiety about money, as well as by the religious fanaticism, which in the end completely extinguished his activity. The vast amount of highly-finished work which he accomplished in these ten years justifies Boerhaave’s rather rhetorical account of his industry. Unfortunately, Boerhaave, whom we have to thank not only for a useful sketch of Swammerdam’s life, but also for the preservation of most of his writings, was only twelve years old when the great naturalist died, and his account cannot be taken as personal testimony. Swammerdam, he tells us, worked with a simple microscope and several powers. His great skill lay in his dexterous use of scissors. Sometimes he employed tools so fine as to require whetting under the microscope. He was famous for inflated and injected preparations. As to his patience, it is enough to say that he would spend whole days in clearing a single caterpillar. Boerhaave gives us a picture of Swammerdam at work which the reader does not soon forget. “His labours were superhuman. Through the day he observed incessantly, and at night he described and drew what he had seen. By six o’clock in the morning