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In Lyonnet’s memoir on the larva of the Goat Moth (Traité Anatomique de la Chenille qui ronge le bois de Saule, 17604) we must not look for the originality of Malpighi, nor for the wide range of Swammerdam. One small thing is attempted, and this is accomplished with unerring fidelity and skill. There is something of display in the delineation of the four thousand and forty-one muscles of the Caterpillar, and the author’s skill as a dissector is far beyond his knowledge of animals, whether live or dead. The dissections of the head are perhaps the most extraordinary feat, and will never be surpassed. Modern treatises on Comparative Anatomy continue to reproduce some of these figures, such as the general view of the viscera, the structure of the leg, and the digestive tract. Nearly the whole interest of the volume lies in the plates, for the text is little more than a voluminous explanation of the figures.

It is not without surprise that we find that Lyonnet was an amateur, who had received no regular training either in anatomy or engraving, and that he had many pursuits besides the delineation of natural objects. He was brought up for the Protestant ministry, turned to the bar, and finally became cipher-secretary and confidential translator to the United Provinces of Holland. He is said to have been skilled in eight languages. His first published work in Natural History consisted of remarks and drawings contributed to Lesser’s Insect Theology (1742). About the same time, Trembley was prosecuting at the Hague his studies on the freshwater Polyp, and Lyonnet gave him some friendly help in the work. Those who care to turn to the preface of Trembley’s famous treatise (Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des Polypes d’eau douce, 1744) will see how warmly Lyonnet’s services are acknowledged. He made all the drawings, and engraved eight of them himself, while Trembley is careful to note that he was not only a skilful draughtsman, but an acute and experienced observer. When the work was begun, Lyonnet had never even seen the operation of engraving a plate. Wandelaar, struck by the beauty of his drawings, persuaded him to try what he could do with a burin. His first essay was made upon the figure of a Dragon-fly, next he engraved three Butterflies, and then, without longer apprenticeship, he proceeded to engrave the plates still required to complete the memoir on Hydra.

Lyonnet tells us that the larva of the Goat Moth was not quite his earliest attempt in Insect Anatomy. He began with the Sheep Tick, but suspecting that the subject would not be popular, he made a fresh choice for his first memoir. Enough interest was excited by the Traité Anatomique to call for the fulfilment of a promise made in the preface that the description of the pupa and imago should follow. But though Lyonnet continued for some time to fill his portfolio with drawings and notes, he never published again. Failing eyesight was one ground of his retirement from work. What he had been able to finish, together with a considerable mass of miscellaneous notes, illustrated by fifty-four plates from his own hand, was published, long after his death, in the Mémoires du Muséum (XVIII.–XX.).