Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/47

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MEMOIR OF LATREILLE.
47

names celebrated by the most useful discoveries in physics, medicine, and the practice of the arts; that the Swammerdams, Linnæuses, Geoffroys, Reaumurs, De Geers, and Fabriciuses, had been drawn by a particular attraction to this interesting study, in such a degree that many of them at last devoted all their time to it, and occupied themselves with it exclusively.

"It would then become my part to point out by what labours the indefatigable Latreille submitted all the observations of these great men to a new test,—a more exact and complete analysis; how prodigiously he added to the number of their observations; and how at last he succeeded in uniting into a body of doctrine such an immense number of facts, as to form at once a guide to the philosophical naturalist in this difficult department of science, and facilitate the study of all the authors who have treated of it.

"But such a demonstration is useless in reference to you, gentlemen, since it belongs to the history of a science with which you are familiar, and the annals of which you are daily continuing to enrich.

"However, although all of you know that Latreille was one of the most eminent men whom study has formed, you are not all aware that he was likewise one of the best whom Nature has made.

"Let one who has had the happiness to enjoy his friendship for the period of nearly forty years be permitted to pass upon him that simple eulogy. It