SKETCH OF OSWALD HEER. 549 



of the book ; and he wrote out, in five thick manuscript parts, the Cole- 

 optera, Hemiptera, and Lepidoptera, illustrating them with drawings 

 in the margins of copies of the figures in the book. In thankful recog- 

 nition of the aid which this work gave him, and of the kindness of its 

 owner, he some years afterward named the oldest fossil bird of Switz- 

 erland, which he found in the slates of Matt, after the musician, Pro- 

 tomis Blumeri. Now he could pursue his collecting with a good heart, 

 and, with the co-operation of his brothers Samuel and Heinrich, he did 

 so ; and for many years no beetle, or butterfly, or caterpillar, was safe 

 from their hands. 



His attention was at first given wholly to animals, and chiefly to 

 insects ; and it was not till June, 1827, that any evidence appears in 

 his diaries of his beginning to take an interest in plants ; but from this 

 time on botanical references are frequent. More than a year before 

 this, in January, 1826, he had begun the record of meteorological ob- 

 servations, which he kept up three times a day for two and a half 

 years till the middle of 1828, when he went to the University of 

 Halle. Young Heer was accustomed to make frequent excursions to 

 the mountains, accompanied usually by his father or his brothers. In 

 this way he became acquainted with the entomology and botany of 

 the whole canton, and enlarged his collections and made them objects 

 of attraction. An acquaintance with Georg Spielberg, a botanist, who 

 was conducting a high-school at Mollis, brought him an introduction 

 to the learned Dr. Hegetschweiler, one of the most distinguished men 

 of the confederation in that science ; and through these connections, 

 and by means of visits which he made with his father to the leading 

 towns of Switzerland, he brought himself into relations with nearly all 

 the scientific men of the country. Now he offered for sale a herbarium 

 of two hundred and fifty Swiss Alpine plants, duly labeled, with which 

 he hoped to obtain pocket-money for his journey to the university. As 

 the time drew near for him to go there, he became more diligent in 

 study. He assigned a task to every hour of the day, from four o'clock 

 in the morning till seven o'clock in the evening. The most of the time 

 was given to theology and church history. Two hours were allotted 

 to botany, and one hour in the evening to the care of the goats and 

 sheep. 



He started for Halle on the 30th of September, 1828, carrying his 

 plant-box filled with bulbs. His purpose was to study theology ; but, 

 while he gave due attention to the lectures on philosophy and meta- 

 physics and the canon of Scripture, he formed personal relations with 

 the botanists and entomologists and the specialist in ferns, and the 

 zoologists whose names may be found in the lists of the faculties of 

 Halle of that time ; and, while he still nursed his religious inclinations, 

 he also kept up and cultivated and made to grow the taste for scien- 

 tific investigation. His vacations gave him opportunities to make ex- 

 cursions of considerable length, which he improved to the increase of 



