406 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



it was always pleasant to watch the effect of 

 his drawings on the audience. When show- 

 ing, for instance, the correspondence of the 

 articulate type, as a whole, with the metamor- 

 phoses of the higher insects, he would lead 

 his listeners along the successive phases of 

 insect development, talking as he drew and 

 drawing as he talked, till suddenly the winged 

 creature stood declared upon the blackboard, 

 almost as if it had burst then and there from 

 the chrysalis, and the growing interest of his 

 hearers culminated in a burst of delighted 

 applause. 



After the first lecture in Boston there was 

 no doubt of his success. He carried his au- 

 dience captive. His treatment of the animal 

 kingdom on the broad basis of the compara- 

 tive method, in which the great types were 

 shown in their relation to each other and to 

 the physical history of the world, was new to 

 his hearers. Agassiz had also the rare gift 

 of divesting his subject of technicalities and 

 superfluous details. His special facts never 

 obscured the comprehensive outline, which they 

 were intended to fill in and illustrate. 



This simplicity of form and language was 

 especially adapted to the audience he had now 

 to address, little instructed in the facts or the 



