Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14755

    Insect cartridge made of leaf

    Date
    19 August 1670
    Creator
    Francis Willughby (1635 - 1672, British) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p47av
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 70mm
    width (page): 182mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > insect
    Description
    Insect cartridges made of leaves, observed by Francis Willughby and described in his letter to Henry Oldenburg, read on 27 October 1670. It was printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 5, no. 65 (November 1670).

    This is the drawing that accompanied the letter, cut out and inserted into the Letter Book Original.

    There is another copy at LBC/4/062a.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 27 October 1670, ‘Two letters of Mr. Willughby to Mr. Oldenburg were read, one dated at Astrop 19 August 1670, the other at Middleton 2 Sept. 1670, both confirming Dr. King’s observation about the maggots lodged in old willows, and changed into bees, and sending some of the very rose leaves, out of which the bee had bitten pieces of such a shape, as are found employed by that insect in making up those cartrages, wherein the bees close themselves up’ (Birch 2:449).

    Printed in Francis Willughby, 'Observations on the insects and cartrages', Phil. Trans. vol. 5, no. 65 (November 1670), pp. 2100-02 (ref. to figures at p. 2102).
    Related fellows
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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