Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/20

20 branches of education. While here, he had the good fortune to acquire the friendship and good offices of the celebrated crys'allographercrystallographer [sic] and mineralogist Haüy. Our sources of information do not supply us with any intimation as to his progress, during this period, in natural history; but there can be no doubt that he was attending to the history of insects, from the knowledge he soon after showed that he had acquired in that department. He retired to the country in 1786, and during his residence there, devoted himself entirely and with the utmost zeal to the study of insects. The fruit of some of his researches appeared a few years afterwards in a Memoir on the Mutillas of France, insects belonging to the order Hymenoptera. This essay, which we believe to have been the first of his publications on Entomology, appeared in the "Actes de la Soc. d'Hist. Nat. de Paris," vol. 1, and it was not long in being succeeded by several others. On the termination of his literary studies, it was designed by Latreille's friends that he should enter the church, and his education had been in some measure directed with that view. His constitution was not robust, and they probably thought that the tranquil duties of the sacred office were better suited to him than the active and laborious exertions required in most secular pursuits. It was little supposed that, in making such a selection, they were taking the very step which was destined at an after period to expose him most to persecution and outrage.