Journal of Proceedings. clxv
John Bay as an Entomologist.
By Edward A. Fitch, F.L.S., F.E.S.
It was late in life that the illustrious Bay determined to give the
world the benefit of his vast entomological knowledge. A naturalist in
every sense of the word, he did not neglect to study and observe the
insects and their allies—however insignificant and unworthy of attention
they might be thought by others of his generation ; for we must remember
that Bay appeared at Exeter on the trial of Lady Granville as a witness
to her sanity, doubted on account of her extreme fondness for collecting
insects. From the letters that are preserved to us, for the publication
which we have to thank Dr. Derham and the Bay Society, it appears
that Bay's earliest entomological correspondent was the talented Dr.
Martin Lister, the author of the ' Tractatus de Araneis,' the history of
spiders, and who writes Bay under date Dec. 22nd, 1669, " This [spider]
part of the history of insects will still be my particular ambition to look
afterwith care." A year later (Dec, 1670) he says, " I have this last month
writ over a new copy of my History of Spiders (which is the fourth since
I put my notes into any order) and inserted therein all the last summer's
observations and experiments. I find only two or three new spiders and
one to be removed into another tribe to which it more properly belongs."
There was much correspondence between Lister and Bay on spiders,
insect galls, various Hemiptera, especially Schizoneura, lanigera, now
known as the "American blight " Aphis of our apple orchards, and which
is said to have been imported from America in 1787 ; but which Lister
and Bay knew well, at least a hundred years previous to this date, and
before William Penn visited those distant regions.
Lister was an accomplished collector as well as a scientific entomolo-
gist. Bay writes him : " I cannot but wonder at your cunning and
luckiness in observing and finding these things," and compliments him on
his discoveries much more fully in his letter of July 15th, 1676. Lister's
principles as a systematist were sound and much in advance of his age.
He writes : " I much like the making of genuses and tribes ex moribus
et vita, though I would not, as near as may be, have the form excluded "
—a lesson still too much overlooked and ignored ; but one which Bay did
not fail to observe. Haworth, a man dear to all British entomologists,
says of Lister's ' Tractatus de Araneis ' that it is a work possessed of great
merit; and which for method, as far as it goes, is not even now (1807) with-
out great difficulty to be improved : and what is surprising, it possesses
a specific character, and occasionally even a tort of trivial name to each
species enumerated, prior to the general description, like the works of
Linnaeus ; and may perhaps have been one of the earliest incitements
that great man received to adopt, universally, specific characters and
trivial names ; their vast utility being too obvious not to have made
a suitable impression on his comprehensive mind.
Bay wished Lister to publish his observations separately rather than
they " should be buried in Mr. Willughby's work, the printing also of
which depends upon my life and health ; and besides it will be long
before his History of Insects be fitted for the press" ; this is dated
July loth, 1676.
At first it was Bay's intention to describe those insects only with
which he was thoroughly conversant. In 1695, he writes to Dr. (after-
wards Sir) Hans Sloane : " In the meantime I do not altogether neglect
the prosecution of the History of Insects : which I intend to extend no
further than to take in such as are found within two or three miles of my
habitation." Again in July, 1697, he refers to his ' History of English
Insects ': " But alas ! I have not gone through one tribe, that of butter-