BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 31B 



are now thinking of fulfilling Professor Bojer's wishes in this respect, 

 if sufficient subscriptions can be collected for the purpose. 



But it was not as a botanist only that M. Bojer was remarkable ; he 

 was also an excellent chemist and geologist, as well as a scientific ento- 

 mologist ; and the Colony of Mauritius has benefited by his labours 

 in each of these departments during a period of thirty-six years. With 

 M. Louis Bouton, Charles Telfair, and that celebrated lover and pro- 

 tector of science, M. Jules Desjardins, he founded, in 1830, the first 

 organized scientific institution in the Colony, " The Society of Natural 

 History," which, in 1845, had its title changed to that which it now 

 bears, "The Eoyal Society of Arts and Sciences, Mauritius." When 

 M. Desjardins died, his widow, with a high appreciation of science, 

 presented the fine museum of this truly great man to the Colony, and 

 recommended M. Bojer to the Government as the fittest person to be 

 the Curator of this museum, a situation he continued to hold tiU his 

 death, though most inadequately paid. From year to year M. Bojer, 

 as Curator and Vice-President of the Society, and M. Louis Bouton, as 

 Secretary, laboured together with constant zeal and devotion to keep 

 up the hght of science in the Colony, and to communicate to the learned 

 societies of Europe the results of their interesting studies. About a 

 year ago M. Bojer was appointed Professor of Natural History and 

 Chemistry at the Eoyal College of Port Louis, where, for the first time, 

 so important a chair as that of natural science was established, though 

 the College had been the principal educational institution of the Co- 

 lony, since the taking of the island by the English in 1810. 

 salary for this professorship also was most inadequate, and quite un- 

 worthy of the constant and zealous labours of M. Bojer, for so niany 

 years, in the service of the Colony. His last work,-m the preparation 

 of which he no doubt laid the seeds of his fatal malady, from continued 



1 £ 1^ frv^ cf^rpnl weeks — was an elaborate ana 



exposure in the cane-fields for several wee^s, .^x i t, 



excellent memoir on the " Borer Insect," which had committed^ such 

 ravages in the island. Several capital engravings represent the ins c 

 in aU its metamorphoses, and M. Bojer determined it^as a new specie, 

 of I^pidoptera, naming it " Froceras sacchanphagm. 



At the beginning o? June, when Mauritius was just -- -^J^^^ 

 a severe visitation of the cholera, from which M. Bojer had fortunately 



• The insect b doubtless the weU- Wn speeies. IHairaa .<ucUri of the Re.. 

 Mr. Giiildiag. 



The 



