21 Biographical Mefnoir of the late Henry Kilhl. 



who, being without children himself, and knowing Kiihl to be 

 very fond of the study of natural history, and possessed of great 

 talents, took him into his society, which proved of the greatest 

 advantage to him. For Leisler was president of the association 

 which had been formed at Hanau not long before, for the sale 

 and exchange of objects of natural history, and an opportunity 

 was thus afforded him of handling and examining these objects. 

 He himself collected new specimens for the museum in the sur- 

 rounding country, and transmitted them in a sufficiently finished 

 condition ; and besides, freed his friend of much of the labour 

 to which his literary connections subjected him. He met him 

 daily at those hunting excursions which proved of so much be- 

 nefit to the ornithology of Europe, accompanied him on these 

 expeditions, and, in short, was conducted by him into the only 

 path by which the assiduous investigator of nature can be led to 

 acquire a true knowledge of the objects of his pursuit. The 

 consequence was, that Kiihl, while yet a boy, was much better 

 acquainted with these objects than often falls to the lot of peo- 

 ple considerably advanced in years. In this manner he obtain- 

 ed a much more complete knowledge of the natural productions 

 of the country of Hanau than could have been expected at his 

 early age ; and, at the same time, so improved the natural acu- 

 men of his mind, that he afterwards detected, in other parts of 

 the eai'th, objects which had eluded the observation of many na- 

 turalists. 



Without allowing their proper weight to these circumstan- 

 ces, it will scarcely be credited that Kiihl, when only nineteen 

 years of age, had already gone over the whole range of minera- 

 logy under the instruction of Leonhard, examined a great num- 

 ber of the plants growing in AVetteravia, with the assistance of 

 Gaertner,'and acquired a knowledge of all the quadrupeds, birds 

 and fishes, of the middle parts of Europe. Besides, at this age, 

 he pubhshed, in the Wetterauen Annalen, vol. iv., a paper on 

 the bats of Germany, in which several species were described for 

 the first time by himself. After Leisler's death, which hap- 

 pened on the 18th November 1813, he undertook the charge of 

 the zoological department of the institution mentioned above, for 

 the sale and exchange of natural curiosities. Nor were his 

 scientific pursuits interrupted by the accession of these new la- 



