Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/40

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MEMOIR OF LATREILLE.

ence respecting writings which have become classical for the study of the science of which M. Latreille so long held the sceptre. Their number in 1822 exceeded eighty, and since that period how many other works, always worthy of the name of their author, have to be added to the list; among these I shall only name his co-operation in the Règne Animal, two volumes with which M. Cuvier had the good fortune to enrich his monumental conception.

"However, even all these entomological works were not sufficient to exhaust M. Latreille's indefatigable activity; his Recherches sur le premier Age du Monde et l'Accord des Théogonies Phénicienne et Egyptienne avec la Génèse; his Dissertation sur l'Expédition du Consul Suétone Paulin en Afrique; his Considérations sur l'Atlantide de Platon; finally, his Vues sur l'Origine du Système metrique dans l'Antiquité et sur quelques Points de Geographie Ancienne, would give M. Latreille the title to be considered one of our most distinguished philosophers, even if Entomology did not place his name above that of all other contemporaries.

"Society knew how to honour such eminent services. Our colleague attained to all the high stations connected with the subject in which he excelled. Since 1810, he was a member of the Academy of Sciences, then Professor of Entomology in the Museum of Natural History; almost all the academies of Europe were eager to obtain, as an associate, the eminent Naturalist, consulted and venerated by zoologists of every country as the supreme legislator in Entomology