Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/19



the many eminent French naturalists, whose loss to science we have so often had occasion to lament during the few past years, the above individual occupied a conspicuous place. He was long known in Paris by his public prelections, and his numerous writings have procured for him a high degree of reputation throughout Europe. In this country he is best known by his admirable works on invertebrate animals, which may be said to have formed a new era in the history of that extensive department of the animal kingdom. But his studies had a very extensive range; many of the most interesting inquiries which for ages have fixed the attention of mankind, were the subjects of his meditation, and on most of them he formed a number of definite ideas which he promulgated under the form of theories. Although these speculations are of a highly fanciful description, and some of them greatly to be deprecated on account of their hurtful tendency, yet they merit attention as the productions of a mind remarkable for originality Rh