Title: Entomology
Description: A thorough understanding of our environment requires knowledge of the approximately one million species of insects that have been described to date and with which we share the world. As a scientific field, entomology was largely anecdotal until the later eighteenth century. The development of the microscope in the seventeenth century, combined with improvements in printing, led to the reproduction of increasingly accurate woodcuts of insects, allowing researchers to examine the fine details of the insect form. The hundred thousand pages in this collection offer copious examples of this outstanding early iconography, much of it in color plates. As scientists refined their examination of insects through the nineteenth century, they developed a systematic classification of insects and an ever more exact morphology that clarified the structure, organs, and tissues of insects.
Subjects: Entomology