To the Fellows of the Society, and to all Observers of Nature,
I present this folio: BRUTALIDAE.
My excursions took me into the new industrial country: the aqueducts, the poured-aggregate footings, the iron-ribbed viaducts. There I found a lineage I did not expect. My predecessors beat the hedgerows for delicate wings. We came back with specimens that seem to have built their anatomy out of slate, chamfered masonry, and structural steel.
Each plate records one specimen, drawn to measure. The forms carry no soft insect curve: stepped silhouettes, rectilinear carapaces, cantilevered limbs. They are printed on heavy archival ground in inks mixed for the purpose: dried mortar, patinated copper, and for the night-shift surveys, soot black.
With each drawing you will find its taxonomic description, field notes on diet and habitat, and our accession stamp.
Take this volume as a survey, not a sketchbook. The specimen plate is an old science. The monolith is a new animal.
I remain your obedient servant in the advancement of Natural Knowledge.
