Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14970

    Insect cartridge made of leaf

    Date
    19 August 1670
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    After
    Francis Willughby (1635 - 1672, British) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    LBC
    Manuscript page number
    vol4 p62a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 76mm
    width (page): 193mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > insect
    Description
    Insect cartridges made of leaves, observed by Francis Willughby and described in his letter to Henry Oldenburg. The letter was read on 27 October 1670, and printed in Philosophical Transactions, vol. 5, no. 65 (November 1670).

    These figures were copied from the original drawings by Willughby at LBO/4/047a.
    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
    Francis Willughby (1635 - 1672, British) , Naturalist
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
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