Foul and Loathsome Creatures
Herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles, was not a favorite subject of Linnaeus, who described these animals as "foul and loathsome creatures". The exploring expeditions and colonial expansion of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, brought a bewildering diversity of bizarre and colorful frogs, turtles, lizards, and snakes to the attention of scientists in Europe and, later, America. Beginning with the huge illustrated catalogue of Albertus Seba's private collection of natural history specimens in the 1730s and continuing through the government-sponsored reports of voyages of exploration (including the United States Exploring Expedition under Charles Wilkes) in the mid-1800s, new and often striking amphibians and reptiles were the focal points of some of the most beautifully and accurately illustrated books of the period.
Published in small numbers for wealthy patrons, foreign dignitaries, or the fledgling professional zoological communities of Europe and America a century or more ago, most of these works have retained their scientific value to herpetologists today. The Ewell Sale Stewart Library possesses copies of many of the finest and rarest illustrated herpetological works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The illustrated works of amphibians and reptiles presented here are among the most spectacular and (usually) accurate animal representations of their times.
—Aaron Bauer, Guest Curator
Professor of Biology, Villanova University