ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



PHILADLPHIA, PA., NOVEMBER, 1915. 



Jean Henri Fabre. 



A telegram from Orange, France, dated October n, 1915, 

 published in the daily press, reads, "Henri Fabre, the entomol- 

 ogist, is dead." 



What a life was his since first he saw the light at Saint- 

 Leons, canton of Vezins, in the Haut Rouergue, on December 

 22, 1823! He himself wrote of it 



a life... not exempt from many cares, yet not very fruitful in in- 

 cidents or great vicissitudes, since it has been passed very largely, in 

 especial during the last thirty years, in the most absolute retirement 

 and the completest silence. 



Most absolute retirement and completest silence account for 

 much of his career. His positive dislike of most human soci- 

 ety and intercourse, his infrequent letters even to his well- 

 loved brother, his refusal to observe many of the ordinary 

 conventionalities had much to do with the obscurity in which 

 most of his life was spent. They explain \vhy he remained 

 for nearly twenty years (1853-1871) assistant professor of 

 physics at the Lycee of Avignon without change in rank, title, 

 or salary, the last amounting to 64 per annum. Fortunately, 

 other sources of income became available, such as that derived 

 from the conservatorship of the Requien Museum. 



It was during the Avignon period that his entomological re- 

 searches began with the Etude snr I'instinct ct Ics metamor- 

 phoses des Sphegiens (1856), but the first series of the Sou- 

 venirs Entomologiques did not appear until 1879. Nine others 

 followed, the tenth in 1908. An English translation of the 

 first series, entitled Insect Life Souvenirs of a Naturalist, 

 was published in 1901 and selections from the others have been 

 included in The Life of the Spider, Social Life in the Insect 

 World, The Mason Bees, etc. Nothing more fascinating in 

 all entomological literature, and at the same time free from all 

 technicality, can be found than Fabre, even though he has been 



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